Adults in the Room and Trump

A recent anonymously written Op-ed piece Anonymous’ vs. Trump: Resistance From Within presents a Whitehouse staff trying to save the country from Donald Trump's worst behavior.  I have an experience from my life I offer here as an analogy.

My father was in his early eighties when he had some traffic accidents in a short period of time.  The first occurred in a hospital parking lot when he inexplicably drove his car on to the sidewalk, taking out a bench and damaging is front fender in the process.  His explanation of the incident was that the rubber pad of the brake came off somehow, and his foot slipped to the accelerator.  I inspected the brake pedal and could not believe this story at all.  Soon after, the same type of incident occurred, this time at a facility housing my invalid sister.  In both cases, no one was hurt.  Prior to these 'accidents', my father called to tell me he was lost en route to our house.  It was a route he had taken dozens of times, involving two turns.  Another time when he was a passenger, he insisted we were on the wrong road to Fullerton.  When we persisted and arrived at our destination, he joked, 'They must have moved Fullerton.'  We coached him to consider stopping his driving, but he insisted that he has always been a fine driver.

The time came for his driver's license to be renewed, and thankfully, the occasion required a driver's test.  The DMV tester failed him on multiple tasks.  We were relieved because we were clearly fearful that the next 'accident' could seriously injure or kill someone.  In retrospect, we should have made sure that he could not drive by taking away the keys to the car.

I am confident there are people across the country who have faced a nearly identical situation with respect to someone who needs to have the keys to the car taken from them.  Insofar as the office of the President affects the lives of millions of people every day and the President's has repeatedly demonstrated that his 'driving' is 'off the rails', it is the responsibility of those closest to him to take away his keys.