The Council had two committee meetings today, including a marathon 3.5 hour Planning, Land Use and Zoning Committee meeting.

I can’t bring myself to write about any of it. Everything on the agendas is important to someone, but all of it is trivial compared to the national conversation of the last few days. And especially today, when President Archie Bunker doubled down on giving political aircover to Nazis, white supremacists, and domestic terrorists — while simultaneously giving a big, wet sloppy kiss to large corporate developers and construction companies in the form of a rollback on regulations that will also financially benefit his own real estate development company.

The biggest existential threat to our country today isn’t North Korea, China, Russia, or even big corporations. It’s Donald Trump. He is both unqualified and unfit to serve as President of the United States. He is ignorant, and uninterested in becoming well-informed. He is self-absorbed and narcissistic. He lacks discipline and impulse control. He insists that members of his administration place loyalty to him above loyalty to the country. He is corrupt and self-dealing. He is racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. He demonstrated all of these qualities on the campaign trail, and he has reaffirmed them all since taking office.  He is, in a word, dangerous.

It’s ironic that a self-described conservative would do so much to undermine the time-honored foundations of our government and our society, and more so that the conservative Republican-majority Congress stands idly by and allows it to happen with full knowledge and consent.

It’s not enough for Congress to censure the President. It’s not enough for the white supremacists in the White House, including Steve Bannon, Steve Miller, and Sebastian Gorka, to be fired. It’s not enough to wait for Mueller’s investigation to run its course. It’s not enough for members of Congress to tweet their stern disapproval of the alt-right/Nazi/white supremacist march in Charlottesville. The totality of Trump’s actions over the past seven months show that he is incapable of leading the country, and he must be removed from office now. Congress can impeach him, or his administration can invoke the 25th Amendment. Frankly, I don’t care which path they take, so long as they take action now. Every day he remains in office he further erodes the underpinnings of our country, our safety, our liberties, our free press, our rule of law, our prosperity, and our stature in global affairs.

Every member of Congress needs to be asked why they continue to support Trump remaining in office when doing so violates the oath of office they took to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And every one of them who doesn’t support removing him should face a recall election at the first opportunity. We can’t wait until 2018 or 2020. The existential threat is here, now, and we must deal with it here, now.

Let’s be clear: getting Trump out of office will be difficult, ugly, and probably violent, as his most fervent supporters will rise up to prevent such an effort. We saw some of them on full display in Charlottesville, armed to the teeth, and if they are willing to do that because of some Confederate statues, just imagine what they will do if Trump is ousted. They will absolutely not go quietly into the night, especially since Trump has validated and empowered them. Yet we must resort to the rule of law to remove Trump, since the rule of law is the thing we are seeking to preserve by removing him.

But let’s also be honest:  the problems won’t magically go away when Trump is removed from office. The alt-right, Nazis and white supremacists won’t pack up and move to another country; they will still be fellow citizens and neighbors. The whole portfolio of issues that led to Trump getting elected — economic, racial, gender, historical, and political — will still be with us.  But today Trump has established himself as the single greatest impediment to addressing those issues, and once he’s gone we can once again take up the hard work of fixing what is broken.

After tomorrow, the City Council goes into recess for two weeks. You can trust that I will use that time to write about what transpired this week, plus a few other big topics I’ve been wanting to address (like rent control). But for the moment, let’s all stay focused on the most important thing: reasserting that this is a nation of, by and for the people, and removing through rule of law the imminent threat to that institution.