Robert Reich Cliams that Trump is no longer President of the United States

Under the headline “Trump has relinquished the presidency – and here’s only one sane response,” former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich—America’s favorite pocket-sized left-wing prophet of doom—serves up political absurdity so detached from reality, it makes flat-earthers sound credible.  Funny that Reich would use the word “sane” in the title of an op-ed that raises legitimate questions about his own sanity.

In the op-ed for Alternet—a Bible of radical left theology – Reich boldly declares that Trump is no longer President. He has “relinquished” the presidency, in Reich’s view. Yep! The man who won the popular and electoral vote in 2024—and was certified by Congress is no longer the President of the United States.  So sayeth the mighty and omnipotent Reich.

In case you think this sort of tin hat nuttiness is  the result  of some recent slip  into dementia, you need to  recall that  in 2020, Reich declared that “by having no constructive response to any of the monumental crises now convulsing America, Trump has abdicated his office.”

And why is Trump no longer the American President this time, you might ask?  Because Reich says so. (You really cannot make this stuff up).  Trump did a lot of things Reich did not like.  (Just like President Biden did a lot of things I did not like, but I never said he was not the President). 

Serving as a one-man House impeachment committee and Senate jury – Reich has declared the office of the President to be vacant.  He offers up a long list of his personal grievances – mostly the mendacious boilerplate accusations that have been repeated ad nauseum on MSNBC on a daily basis for the past several years.

In his screed, Reich calls on the American people to pretend that Trump is no longer President.   He writes that we the people need to be rising up, “making a ruckus at Republican town halls, phoning our senators and representatives so often we’re jamming congressional switchboards, joining our local Indivisible resistance groups, demonstrating, forming sanctuary communities, and boycotting corporations (such as Tesla and Target) that are caving to Trump.” (He forgot to mention law firms, universities, NATO and CBS.)

Reich’s action plan is extreme and extremely stupid.  According to Reich, the American people must now …

“… assume that everything he [Trump] says is a lie. Ditto for his ‘spokespeople.’   And for his White House staff and Cabinet. We will never fall for or repeat his lies.

We will not even listen to him. When he’s about to speak, we’ll turn off whatever device we have. We will not even read accounts of what he says, because they are meaningless drivel.”  (This is equivalent to a five-year-old sticking his fingers in his ears.)

Reich is not just calling for rational resistance.  The man who once ran the Labor Department now seems to be running a fantasy rebellion from his own study at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is currently corrupting young minds as The Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.  (Whew!  That title is longer than his inseam).

Even for someone who’s spent his career teetering on the edge of leftist lunacy, this screed is a full swan dive into the deep end. It is Trump Derangement Syndrome on steroids.

Reich has become the spiritual mascot of the Trump Resistance Movement — a movement so allergic to objective facts its followers break out in hives whenever Trump’s policies succeed. Secure border? Hives. Tax cuts? Hives. Taming inflation? Hives. Job growth? Hives. Record stock market?  Hives. Peace deals? Full-blown anaphylaxis.

His battle cry is “resist! resist! resist!”—which sounds less like a political strategy and more like a toddler refusing to eat broccoli. Reich’s plan includes everything short of storming the Bastille — protests, boycotts, switchboard-jamming, and the noble art of pretending the President doesn’t exist. It’s like political peekaboo for grown-ups.

And let us look as examples of those on his boycott list — Tesla and Target. Because nothing says “down with tyranny” like refusing to buy throw pillows or electric cars.  Reich’s action plan reads like a manifesto written in a state of inebriation or a drug-induced mind warp.  It is not resistance—it is performance art.

To justify his tantrum, Reich rattles off the usual MSNBC-approved grievances—those same tired talking points that have been regurgitated by the left more times than a gas station burrito. It’s less a critique and more a ritual chant to ward off the ghost of 2016.

And let’s not ignore the irony: Reich, a man of famously modest stature, is trying to mount a coup with the gravitas of a Shakespearean villain — but the execution of a sock puppet. It’s Napoleon Complex meets Reddit thread.  It is a grandiose scheme from a very little man.

One can only assume that Reich was driven to such madness by a virulent bitterness caused by his and the Democrats’ inability to prevent Trump’s initial election in 2016 – compounded exponentially by the fact that Trump triumphed over the obsessive haters with an even more impressive win in 2024.

In the end, Reich’s op-ed isn’t a call to action.  It is a cry for help — a desperate attempt to rewrite reality because reality did not go his way. He’s not defending the Constitution.  Rather he is verbally defecating on the document with his pathetic embrace of a one-man coup attempt.

Memo to Mr. Reich: Trump is the President. Get over it. Your fever dream of a DIY coup will not change that. But hey, thanks for the entertainment. Today’s politics needs a good laugh.

So, there ‘tis.