The Increasing Cost to Republican Leaders for Ignoring Trump's Mental Crisis
For more than 30 years my working life was developing strategies and media for political candidates and causes. I no longer do that professionally. Now I’m retired. But my mind isn’t. I still think in terms of strategies and tactics.
That’s why since Trump’s first days of his second term I’ve believed Donald Trump will not complete his four year stay in the White House.
My most likely scenario has been that after the political defeats they are likely to experience in the 2026 November mid-term elections, Republican members of Congress would take either one of two paths to remove Trump from office. They would either let the newly seated 2027 Democratic congressional majority successfully impeach him, or Vice President JD Vance and the Republican congressional leadership would medically remove him as no longer fit to serve. That’s an option the 25th amendment to the Constitution permits.
Improbable? Not if you think cold, hard, calculating political strategy thoughts.
If you are a Republican lawmaker facing a presidential election in 2028, would you rather do it defending a discredited, wildly unpredictable and medically impaired Trump who just lost your majority in Congress, or with a newly installed young President Vance under a “give Vance a Chance” banner, with an attractive, new, politically unsoiled vice president as his running mate?
Look no further back in history than 2024, when too many Democrats propped up a politically unpopular and medically impaired Joe Biden.
Threats to Democracy: Election Interference and Constitutional Risks
That’s been my thinking until lately, when I began seriously questioning whether Trump would, and could, rig this November’s election, and if unsuccessful, try to keep the losing Republicans now in Congress from confirming Democratic winners with bogus law suits or worse.
Fantasy? He would have succeeded in doing just that in 2000 if not for resistance from his vice president and top military people, two hurdles he would not need to overcome this year.
Now, I’ve changed my mind again. Trump may be too far gone mentally to get to November as president.
How could one not be thinking about Trump’s mental health after events of the last few weeks? His letter to the president of Norway announcing he was no longer interested in peace because he wasn’t awarded the Noble Prize? Signing documents as the “acting president of Venezuela? Assuming that he can personally take over Gaza with a money-making scheme? Launching what amounts to a violent paramilitary takeover of Minneapolis? Telling the New York Times the only constraint on his actions is what’s in his own mind, and that he alone can interpret what’s lawful?
To wildly understate the state of his mind, it isn’t well.
Republican Silence, Political Risk, and Trump’s Mental Decline
Until now, most Republicans in Congress have been content to look the other way. They’ve seen what has happened to colleagues who didn’t. Liz Cheney. Adam Kinzinger. Jeff Flake. And others. To be elected to Congress is a heavy lift, risky in terms of personal finances, reputations, personal relations with family and friends. Why then risk success just to make a political statement when it would almost certainly result in your campaign money spigot being turned off, and your voting support base being imperiled. Also, as Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski bravely described it not long ago, there’s a genuine personal fear factor that comes with opposing Trump.
Nevertheless, 218 current Republican members of the House and 53 Republican senators are aware of Trump’s rapid mental decline—even more aware than those of us who just watch him on TV and read the news stories. They actually see him personally. They interact with Trump’s White House, talk to members of Trump’s cabinet. They’re in contact with the intelligence community and military leaders. They talk with their own spouses, partners, mothers, fathers and children, many of whom must be asking why do you continue to support Trump?
As long as they continue to remain quiet they also remain accessories to Trump’s crimes, craziness and trashing of the Constitution. And it’s not unlikely that some day they may be legally called to account for abetting them. The burden of silence is growing.
At some point, and maybe sooner than most of us expect, a critical number of these Republican members will decide their political futures are more at risk by defending Trump than supporting him. It won’t take many. Five or six in the Senate. Ten or 15 in the House. They won’t have to change parties. Just change their votes. And that would open the floodgates to change.
Could it really happen?
From a politically strategic viewpoint, it could. Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior adds to the burden of silence.
From a strictly medical viewpoint, it’s becoming increasingly urgent that it should.
Comments? Criticism? Contact Joe Rothstein at jrothstein@rothstein.net
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