President Donald Trump at a White House press conference on February 4, 2025 (Noamgalai/Shutterstock.com)
America may not make it over the next 33 months if “Mad King Donald” Trump is not impeached, argues conservative columnist Bill Kristol, who is also calling for resistance from executive branch officials.
“The simple fact is that we have a president who is irresponsible, reckless, and indeed unhinged,” Kristol writes at The Bulwark. “And he’s all the more dangerous because he is unconstrained by both his subordinates in the executive branch or by Congress.”
Acknowledging that Trump was impeached twice before but never convicted, Kristol knows that impeachment and conviction may not be “in the cards” right now, while suggesting that perhaps the third time is the charm.
“The misconduct of Trump, in terms of his corruption and that of his associates, is unparalleled in our history. His abuses of power leave Nixon in the dust. A trial of impeachment would allow all the evidence of his offenses to be presented coherently in one time and place. Even if conviction doesn’t follow, an unequivocal alarm would have been sounded.”
He argues America must start laying the groundwork for impeachment, saying it’s time to discuss both impeachment and resistance by executive branch officials seriously.
“When the head of the executive branch shows a repeated willingness to enrich himself, to lie to the public, to break the law, senior officials can appropriately recall that the oath they take is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. They can remind themselves that they are obliged to obey the law rather than the illegal wishes of their boss or their boss’s boss.”
They can slow-walk issues or actions, he suggests, and “make life more difficult for their political masters who are seeking to engage in misconduct or abuses of power.”
He also calls for officials who resist to force their superiors to “fire them for standing up against impropriety,” and then, “speak up about what they have seen inside.”
And he says it is “sober realism” to doubt that “we can make it safely through the next thirty-three months” without considering these measures.
