PRESIDENT WITH AN ASTERISK

Donald Trump has mounted three full-blown presidential campaigns, winning two of them, both times against women—in a country that has never elected a woman president.

Twice the women involved, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, either got close to beating the man in the popular vote—or in the case of Clinton, actually did beat him there, though Trump denies that happened.

(After all, tons of illegal aliens voted for her, and, as he would say, everybody knows it.)

But the way I see it, Trump is a president with an asterisk next to his name: He can only win against women, in a country that may never vote in a woman, no matter what slime-ridden knuckle-dragger she's matched with.

On the other hand, put Trump up against a dementia-adjacent old man, and he's toast.

Trump knows, of course, that he did beat Joe Biden, but his proof got lost in the mail. Fortunately for the Donald, his pal Vladimir Putin backs him up on the 2020 election theft. But that's how you ingratiate yourself with the current president: flatter him and re-enforce his delusions.

(According to Trump, Putin even agrees that if Trump had been allowed to take power in 2021, there would have been no war in Ukraine. Would be interesting to hear Putin explain how that could have come about—and compare his reasoning with Trump's. But I've never heard Trump explain why there would not have been a war. Would he have said something that prevented it? Something like, "Hey, Vlad, invade Ukraine and I'll nuke Moscow!" Or was his mere presence in the White House going to be enough to scare Putin into waiting until Trump was out of office before putting his pent-up plans in motion?)

Here's the thing: Donald Trump is a stupid, crazy, aggressively shitty man, a vindictive thug, and a pathological liar.

(Perhaps one day he can tell us more stories about Uncle John and his relationship with Jack the Ripper.)

Trump doesn't recognize any of these faults, of course, and he never will. In general, the human brain protects us all from ever finding out the truth about ourselves.

However it happened, the man got himself elected, so we're stuck with him for another three and a half years: a criminal enterprise without guardrails, who is dismantling government and science and history and decency in a race to the bottom layers of human existence.

I'm pretty sure he plans to send troops to every (blue) city in the country, just to intimidate folks.

His illegal and delusional tariffs are hamstringing our economy and driving once friendly trading partners to embrace China, possibly forever. Trump thinks he can cure a trade deficit by taxing the offending country with tariffs, which is not how they work. (He still appears to think the foreign country pays the tariff.) The real fix for this condition is to find out what the other country needs and supply that need at a good price.

The members of his own party refuse to stop him because they fear his ability to destroy their political careers—and let's not forget they took a sacred oath on the Holy Bible to protect and preserve those careers.

(At least, that's how they must remember the day they got sworn into the House or Senate.)

There is, consequently, no viable, legal method for removing Trump from office.

We desperately need to create one.

We need a way to declare "no confidence" in a given president and demand a do-over of the most recent election.

If the president refuses, he's out, and the new election will be held without him.

If he participates, and wins, maybe give him (or her) a bonus year or two to prove his programs are proper and effective, despite appearances.

Perhaps a petition signed by millions of verified voters could make this do-over election happen, voters from both parties or those with no party affiliation.

But it would likely require a constitutional amendment to start the ball, which would no doubt take years to ratify. Nothing to address the immediate threat.

A more secure and honest president than Trump might be counted on to agree to a do-over election without any law or amendment in place, but we don't live in that world.

In the meantime, if the man is not actually planning a coup, it's astonishing how much it looks like that's exactly what he's up to.

During the campaign he said folks would only have to vote one more time, because he would just need four years to "fix" everything.

Can't help thinking that sounds ominous...