Saturday, May 20, 2017

More from the Alternate Reality of Trumplandia

Today, in its ongoing effort to prove it's "fair and balanced," the Star Tribune editorial page had three (count ’em, three!) pro-Trump letters in a row. The writers were replying to a recent commentary by local attorney Marshall Tanick, who was ruminating on using the 25th Amendment to remove the turnip from office.

These letters are... whew. We live in different realities, for sure:

THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY
Invoke the 25th Amendment? Better for Obama, not Trump.

As I was reading employment law attorney Marshall H. Tanick’s May 17 commentary regarding the use of the 25th Amendment to remove a president, I continually thought this article should have been published and acted upon about eight years ago. It was at this time that a very ill-equipped and ill-prepared Barack Obama was elected president. If the 25th Amendment had been activated during the beginning of his presidency, we would not now be faced with a badly broken health insurance system, a decimated health care structure, a barely recovering economy, low wages, continued underemployment, the ISIS takeover of Iraq, a decimated military, a sorely divided nation and a loss of respect from our allies abroad. All Mr. Tanick has to hang his constitutional hat on is fake news reports, rabid left-wing hatred of President Trump, illegal surveillance and leaks from anonymous sources to savage President Trump’s rather short-lived presidency.

Bob Maginnis, Edina

• • •

Tanick does not like Donald Trump, whom he describes as “maniacal” and “mentally unhinged.” Since Tanick is strangely silent on the reasons for this visceral antipathy, we are left to infer that it stems at least partly from some profound policy differences with the president.

Tanick’s proposal for resolving these differences involves Trump’s removal from office, a respite that would enable Trump to regain “any equilibrium he once may have had.” This sounds eerily similar to the former Soviet Union’s practice of treating any disagreement with the communist system as a form of mental illness.

Peter D. Abarbanel, Apple Valley

• • •

I am shocked and upset about the negative things said about our president! He is doing a great job of building our country back up after the last administration! We should be ashamed of ourselves of the way he is being treated. Do we want things to be the way they were before Donald Trump took office? I don’t think so!

Elaine Malakowsky, Chanhassen
All suburban writers, of course.

While I disagree with the second letter, I don't question that writer's grasp on reality. In contrast, I had to reread the first and third ones to make sure they weren't parodies. (Obama should have been removed under the 25th Amendment, but Trump is fine? "Do we want things to be the way they were before Donald Trump took office?"... Uh, yes.)

But nope. They're serious.

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