There are 27 Amendments to the United States Constitution, ranging from individual citizens’ rights to rules for government officials. The 25th Amendment deals with what should happen if the President of the United States were to resign, pass away or become incapacitated, and would, therefore, be unable to perform the duties of the president.
The amendment allows should something happen to the president, the vice president takes over. However, it also allows the vice president, along with either a majority of the Cabinet or of Congress, to deem the president unfit to carry out the duties of his office.
According to Emily Singer at Mic Network, the president can defend himself against claims of being unfit, and the vice president and majority of the Cabinet or Congress have four days to respond.
There must then be a two-thirds vote from both chambers of Congress agreeing with the vice president and cabinet. Then, the vice president can officially take over the presidential title and duties.
President Donald Trump could become unfit for various reasons ranging from surgery to the restlessness in his position, and Vice President Mike Pence could put Trump out of office using the 25th Amendment.
It would be a very long, tedious process, but it could happen.
However, it has been almost a full year since Trump was elected and no one has been spurred into any action. Impeachment has been talked about, but never acted on.
A process like this, once it gets rolling, should not take a long time, in theory. However, we all know the powers in D.C. can take a long time to handle the simplest of issues.
By the time the process would hypothetically be completed, there may only be a year left for Pence to take over as president of the United States.
Would a Pence presidency be the best thing for the United States, though?
On one hand, Pence does not take to Twitter to voice his anger at opposition, like Trump is notorious for doing. Pence does not call leaders of foreign powers “Rocket Man” or blame “both sides” when it comes to racial protests.
On the other hand, Pence is actually a politician, and while he may keep foreign powers happy enough to avoid World War III over petty 140-word exchanges on social media, he knows how to get bills passed.
Even the short time he could possibly serve in office could be detrimental, just by introducing his ideas as bills.
According to Madeleine Sheehan Perkins at Business Insider, Pence does not believe in same-sex marriage, women serving the military or funding Planned Parenthood.
He believes abortion is never acceptable, funding for HIV/AIDS treatment should be cut, LGBT conversion therapy is necessary and business owners should be allowed to discriminate against customers for religious reasons.
Ideals like these are devastating to many different groups, the United States Armed Forces included. If Pence became president and decided to propose these as bills, or worse, institute them as executive orders, it would be terrible. Having the seed of these potential laws planted in Congress would harm people long after the presidency is over.
Americans’ current options for leaders, at least for the next three years, are either a man who could potentially start World War III, which would most likely be nuclear and therefore unrecoverable, or a man who could tear the country apart by alienating and hurting individual citizens. Those are the men America elected.