What Happens When He Dies?
Are we heading to a coup of a coup?
Sitting Presidents are rarely alone. There is constant Secret Service protection and White House domestic staff at work in their vicinity when the President is not engaged in official duties. Otherwise, the job is largely conducted in front of cameras.
The Navy Seal Team Six mission to kill Osama bin Laden happened at around 3 a.m. in DC. As we can see above, the White House photographer keeps the same sleeping schedule as the President.
Recent rumors to the contrary, it would be impossible for a sitting President to die and it be kept a secret. The questions we should be asking ourselves right now concern succession. The first section of the 25th amendment stipulates: In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
However, we are dealing with self-consciously revolutionary actors who have already rejected the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election, and who have demonstrated a commitment to de-institutionalizing the nation-state in favor of privatized controls. The death of the next sitting President will not be a time to reinforce the structures and traditions of the nation, to make public statements about our shared loss and our need to move forward together. Instead, it will be taken as a Great Opportunity by a collection of selfish, transactional opportunists.
We were not three months into the Reagan Administration when Al Haig exposed his ambitions, following Hinckley’s assassination attempt. Haig was a former Army general and a solid nationalist. Forty-five years later, whoever takes the podium at the White House and makes such a claim is not going to later defer to the constitution, as Haig did.
Trump’s litany of appointees are remarkable for their lack of qualification for the tasks to which they have been assigned. However, as we learned from Trump’s New York business fraud trial (The “Stormy Daniels” case), everyone in his interior orbit is just as transactional as he is. Favors are never offered without the knowledge they will be matched, every conversation had is to feel out whether personal interests are being advanced.
Stormy let Trump fuck her without a condom on (even though it would interfere with her porn work schedule) because she wanted a spot on his TV show. She did not end the relationship until it was clear his promise was never going to be fulfilled. Trump’s relationship with the publisher of The National Enquirer was also transactional, with the paper being fed salacious content by Trump—selling copies—to be used for his own ends when in print.
While J.D. Vance is next in line by the constitution, we have to ask whether he has the political acumen or gravitas to assume and hold the office. Recall, this is a suburban kid who hated himself so much that he has changed his name multiple times, wrote a fictitious autobiography, and found his social class mobility-sponsor in a South African white supremacist billionaire who wants to dissolve the nation-state and replace it with a corporate model of social organization. Peter Thiel bought Vance the Ohio Senate seat and got Trump to pick him as his running mate.
Remember, Trump does not appoint people based on their qualifications to do the jobs they are assigned. Vance will take the Oath of Office and be named the president, but there is little reason to expect he will be able to command MAGA. Trump will be sainted by MAGA politicians evoking his name as they challenge Vance’s legitimacy in advance of 2028.
Students of American politics since the 1980’s know that incumbents terming-out of the Presidency usually pave the way for their successor. Reagan wanted Bush the Elder, Clinton wanted Al Gore, Bush the Lesser did not seem to care, but Obama promised Clinton 2016 would be her turn (as Joe Biden retired, rather than challenge her).
It is still early in his second term, but the best step Trump could take to assist Vance in 2028 would be to die with enough time for Vance to establish a record of his own achievements as President.
It would seem to me that the most practical way to make such a thing happen would be to find enough money to buy a genetically-engineered, strong, new influenza virus and its vaccine. Administer the vaccine to the carrier and then spray the virus all over their clothes and hands. COVID-19 almost killed Trump in 2020, and he has not gotten any healthier since then.
There are lots of people with motive, much fewer with enough money, and fewer still with opportunity—the V.P. hits all the notes. It may sound preposterous under the traditional American political rubric, but we are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
Besides, under the design of the original constitution, the V.P. was expected to be the political opponent of the President, and you know how this Supreme Court loves original intent. Is it possible for the Vice-President to commit a crime, when engaged in official duties, such as meeting with the President?