Who’s Going to Bell the Cat?

The 6th Century Greek fabulist, Aesop, is generally credited with having written the fable about a group of mice that was being terrorized by a large cat that patrolled their domain. To address this problem, the mice convened their governing council to consider ideas for dealing with the cat. Toward the conclusion of their meeting they fixed upon a plan to tie a bell around the cat’s neck so they could hear when the cat was approaching. Then, one of mice raised a troubling question: “Who’s going to bell the cat?” This dilemma has relevance for the Republican politicians today because President Trump has become so unhinged from reality that his actions are creating a serious and imminent threat to our nation. It has also caused his popularity, both at home and abroad, to plummet posing re-election difficulties for his Congressional supporters.  

​ During the second half of his first term and continuing during the four years that Biden was our nation’s president, Donald Trump used his extraordinary powers of persuasion to purge the Republican Party’s political leaders who did not support him. Indeed, by the time he was re-elected in 2024 there were no more than a handful of Republican members of the Congress who did not sing his praises and support his every action. Adding to that, during his first term Trump had nominated over 225 federal judges including three members of the U.S. Supreme Court who had cast their votes granting him immunity from criminal action taken in his official capacity. In short, he had transformed himself into the most formidable political force our nation has had since FDR. As a result, Republican members of Congress now are confronted with the dilemma of when and how they should protect themselves (and our nation) from the further dangers posed by a super-empowered and unrestrained President Trump.

Throughout most of his first term, President Trump had allowed himself (albeit reluctantly) to be constrained by the senior members of his administration, most of whom had been recommended by the leaders of the Republican Party. However, by the time he had been re-elected in November 2024, he was determined to hand pick all of the senior members of his administration and to do so on the basis of their loyalty to him. In addition, he had also assembled a group of conservative zealots to map out governmental changes he would implement within the first few months of his new term. This placed him in a position to quickly transform how our nation would be governed. This process was begun with a barrage of executive orders. Specifically, on the first day of his new term he issued 25 executive orders. By the end of the first hundred days in office that number had grown to just under 100; and by the end of the first year it had grown to almost 250 executive orders.

​ These actions were augmented by the appointment of Elon Musk, a brilliant and tireless entrepreneur (who had become the world’s richest man), as the head of a newly created Department of Governmental Efficiency (aka “DOGE”). DOGE’s mission would be to drastically slash the federal budget by eliminating programs, agencies and even departments of the federal government that did not advance Trump’s master plan entitled “Project 2025.”  That 900-page document had been compiled by The Heritage Foundation and has been characterized by Mike Wendling of the BBC as “a set of proposals that would expand presidential power and impose an ultra-conservative social vision.”

​ Trump’s next move in this governmental blitzkrieg was to put the Congress to work on his “One Big Beautiful Bill.” This horrendous piece of legislation was enacted on July 4, 2025 and not only extended the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act which heavily favored our nation’s wealthiest individuals, but also made major cuts in several federally-funded social welfare programs including healthcare subsidies provided under the Affordable Care Act and the Medicaid Program. In addition, it made deep cuts in the budget of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program which provided monthly financial assistance to 22.4 million low income families to help them purchase food. Three months into his new term Trump launched another volley of attacks on the financial well-being of working class Americans -- a plethora of tariffs which increased the prices of scores of items in their family budgets.

​ Adding insult to injury, President Trump simultaneously exercised his presidential powers to enrich himself and the members of his family. When asked by a reporter whether he was concerned about how these actions might be viewed by economically hard-press working class Americans, President simply responded “No.” Trump’s disregard for the concerns of working class families didn’t stop there; he went on to breach some of his campaign promises that were expressly designed to appeal to them. Most notably, he commenced a war with Iran after having repeatedly promised not to start any foreign wars. Equally upsetting to working class Americans was the breach of his promise to open the government’s Epstein files and make public the names and actions of those who, along with Epstein, had preyed on underage girls.

​ While all of this was transpiring, Congressional Republicans not only voiced no objections, but consistently opposed the efforts of Congressional Democrats to bring Trump’s onslaught on America’s working class to an end. In this connection, it must be appreciated that Trump exercised considerable control over Congressional Republicans which was (and is) derived from three sources: (1) his control of the resources of the federal government; (2) his ability to captivate media attention; and (3) his almost mystical power to influence Republican voters. Of these, his ability to influence Republican voters maybe the most important; and his actions described above were undoubtedly responsible for an almost 10-point drop in his overall “favorability” rating from 47% to somewhere between 37% and 40%. Even these polling figures don’t tell the full extent of voter unhappiness with the Trump administration’s actions. For example Trump’s approval rating  for handling the nation’s economy is reported to have fallen to somewhere between 29% and 33% and his approval rating on managing the government had fallen to as low as 33%.

Trump’s actions since being re-elected have also had adverse impacts that extend far beyond simply disaffecting the American electorate. They have had (and will continue to have) a long-term impact on the well-being of our nation. High on this list is the damage Trump has done to the rule of law which holds our nation together. Specifically, he has repeatedly violated our laws and Constitution, seemingly daring the Congress and the courts to preclude him from doing so. Among such actions are (1) his usurping Congress’ power to impose tariffs (2) his issuance of an executive order suspending “birthright citizenship” (3) his abuse of his presidential power to issue pardons and instigate frivolous prosecutions of his political enemies, and (4) his administration failure to comply with the dictates of the Epstein Transparency Act. These transgressions have also been met with little or no criticisms by Congressional Republicans.

In addition to damaging our nation’s governmental structure, Trump has also inflicted grievous damage to our national economy. This category of misdeeds include the Trump administration’s campaign to arrest and expel literally millions of illegal immigrants, some of whom have lived in the U.S. for decades. Contrary to President Trump’s assertions, few, if any, are “murderers, drug dealers and rapists”; and roughly three quarters of those arrested by immigration officials have no criminal records. Indeed, the crime rate among illegal aliens is substantially lower than the crime rate of American citizens. The reality is that this campaign has little to do with combatting crime or even raising employment opportunities for American workers. It’s simply a cynical appeal to the social and racial prejudices of low-information voters who overwhelming support Trump and Republican politicians.

From an economic perspective illegal aliens perform important jobs like harvesting agricultural products and working in factories, hospitals and households -- jobs which many U.S. citizens would not even consider accepting especially for the wages that immigrants are paid. In addition, while illegal aliens pay taxes on their wages, they receive few of the vast majority of benefits available to U.S. citizens. The economic impact of the Tramp administration’s campaign against illegal immigrants will likely be felt in the coming months when agricultural harvests decline and food prices, as well as the prices of other services routinely performed by illegal aliens, begin to rise.

Perhaps the largest casualty of the Trump administration will be inflicted upon our nation’s healthcare system. It’s not just that cuts to healthcare benefits will cause 10 to 16 million Americans to lose their healthcare coverage, but cuts to the budgets for the Center for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health will curtail efforts to identify and combat the spread of infectious diseases which annually already cause the deaths of 100,000 to 150,000 Americans. On top of that, virtually all USAID funding has been cut which will allow potentially fatal infectious diseases (like AIDS, HIV, Malaria, Tuberculosis and Polio) which start in other nations to flourish and find their way into the U.S.

What is particularly upsetting is that the Trump administration is not even attempting to use the monies not being spent on social welfare programs to reduce our nation’s fiscal indebtedness. Instead, those savings are being used to offset the extension of tax breaks for wealthy Americans and to greatly increase the budget of the Department of Homeland Security. The result is that, during 2025 our nation’s annual debt rose by over $2 trillion. On top of that, the increases in inflation, principally caused by the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, have resulted in higher interest rates making the annual interest charges on the nation’s outstanding debt to increase to $970 billion or roughly the same as the nation's defense budget.

Similarly, President Trump has also undermined our nation’s relationships with almost all other nations (with the possible exception of Russia). Specifically, he has belittled our NATO allies’ impact on strengthening our national security and demeaned their leaders. Adding to these insults, he complained when no NATO member nation responded affirmatively to his requests for help to bail him out when he disturbed a hornet’s nest by attacking Iran. It mattered not to him that he had taken that action without even conferring with them before he proceeded with his ill-fated attack.

His widespread imposition of tariffs, not only caused economic harm to Americans who were forced to pay higher prices for imported merchandise, but also adversely affected our trading partners who suffered a reduction in their exports to the U.S. In response, many have been prompted to seek other trading partners. While the Constitution places the president in charge of foreign relations, the economic impact of these actions is a Constitutional concern of the Congress which has been ignored by Republican members of Congress who have voted down proposals made by their Democratic colleagues seeking to limit Trump’s power to impose tariffs.

Thus, as described above, Donald Trump represents a danger to the U.S. and its citizens no less than the threat posed by the cat in Aesop’s fable. Like that cat, Trump is both insensitive to the pain he inflicts upon others and relentless in his efforts to get what he wants. When he encounters an obstacle standing in his way, his reaction is invariably to pursue another approach to achieve his objective. This trait was demonstrated by his actions in response to the Supreme Court’s decision declaring his initial set of tariffs to be in violation of the Constitution. His response was to simply reimpose those same tariffs only premising them on another legal authority.

From the very inception of our nation, the president was deemed not to be above the law and was subject to prosecution for his violations of the nation’s criminal laws. However, in 2024 the U.S. Supreme Court ignored that founding precept in the case of Trump v. U.S., in which it held that a president has immunity against criminal proceedings for actions taken in his (or her) official capacity. That leaves only two ways to prevent a renegade president from abusing his power.

The first is found in the U.S. Constitution’s Twenty-fifth Amendment which allows the vice president and a majority of the 15 members of the president’s cabinet to permanently remove the president from office by filing with a Congress a declaration that the president is no longer able to perform the duties of the Office of the President. This provision (which was adopted in 1967) has been temporarily invoked on three occasions when the president was undergoing a medical procedure which required him to be anesthetized. Importantly, however, it has never been invoked to permanently remove a president against his will. Considering that President Trump chose all of the members of his Cabinet on the basis of their loyalty to him, it seems inconceivable that the 25th Amendment will ever be invoked to remove him from office even “if he shot someone while walking down Fifth Avenue.”

The more promising way to legally terminate Donald Trump’s presidency is to impeach him which has been tried twice – both times unsuccessfully. This is clearly not going to happen as long as the Republicans continue to hold a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives. That’s because Congressional Republicans lack the courage to rise up against Trump as long as he maintains the support of Republican voters. Their view is also supported by their faith that Trump will always successfully maneuver his way out of all threatening situations. This means that there will be no effort to impeach him at least before the November elections.

To be sure, there is a distinct possibility (or even likelihood) that the Democrats might take control of the House of Representatives next January and might even adopt a third article of impeachment against Trump. Indeed, there is perhaps an even greater possibility that the Democrats will gain control of at least one of the houses of the Congress and will hold extensive hearings publicizing Trump’s many bad decisions, acts of larceny, actions against the interests of working class Americans and efforts which undermine the well-being, standing and prestige of our nation. Should this happen a number of Republican senators might vote in favor of convicting Trump of at least a single article of impeachment. Still, the chances of Trump’s being found guilty by two-thirds of the Senate’s members are essentially nil. Remember, even after Trump arranged for and incited the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and Mitch McConnell and other Republican senators condemned Trump for having done so, the Senate failed by a margin of 10 votes to convict him. Moreover, of the seven Republican members of the Senate who voted to convict Trump in that proceeding only two will still be in the Senate next year making it all the more unlikely that a new impeachment proceeding will be successful. Thus, just as in Aesop’s fable, there seems to be no affirmative way of answering the question of “Who’s going to bell the cat.”