Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich is calling for Donald Trump's impeachment "as soon as possible." His argument, in a nutshell: Trump is almost as deranged and mentally unstable as…Robert Reich.

Here is his initial argument in his own words (from an August 18 blog post):

Let’s be clear. There is already enough evidence to impeach Trump on grounds of abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

There is already enough evidence of mental impairment to invoke the 25th amendment.

I know, Republicans are in control of Congress. But this is no license for Trump to destroy the nation we love.

I know, removing Trump would mean having Mike Pence as president. But a principled right-winger is better for America and the world than an unhinged sociopath. 

"Abuse of power," "mental impairment," "unhinged sociopath." Well, well. Might we take a moment, then, to do the very unprogressive thing, and apply these same kettle-judging standards to the pot?

"Let's be clear," as Reich would say. There is already enough evidence to commit Robert Reich to an insane asylum on grounds of sociopathic delusions of grandeur and intent to commit geronticide.

Here is how Reich, also a key advisor to President Obama, explained to an enthusiastic group of university students several years ago how an "honest" political candidate would speak "the truth" about health care to a campaign audience:

On health care, look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. That's true, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people. But that means…you young healthy people, you're going to have to pay more [for something you neither want nor need].

And by the way…if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for those last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months -- it's too expensive, so we're going to let you die. [Emphasis added]

If for some reason you have remained essentially confused about the true meaning and nature of progressivism, I draw your attention to the final words of that passage: "it's too expensive, so we're going to let you die."

Who is "we" in that statement? And where does that "we" get the moral authority to commandeer goods and services produced and provided by other citizens (health care) and then decide for a whole population who should be "given" those goods and services and who should be denied them?

Whence derives the authority of that "we" to decide that health care should be forcibly withheld from the old and infirm -- that they should be systematically sent to an early grave against their and their families' wishes -- strictly on the basis of "our" impersonal budget calculus regarding the health care industry "we" have commandeered?

Sadly, the modern world is so immersed in this progressive mindset that even many so-called conservatives seem to have a hard time recognizing the enormity of the evil connoted by such statements.

To describe the mental state indicated by Reich's words on health care as criminal insanity would be charitable. What it is, to state the matter plainly -- that is, without any of our standard progressive euphemisms -- is what the ancient Greeks called the tyrannical soul, tempered only by the innate insecurities of the sniveling bureaucratic mind. That is to say, his words, and the assumptions behind them, indicate the combination of power lust and fundamental hatred for humanity that is born of a soul morally corrupted by irrational fear and a spoiled child's desire to control others.

For a man of this sort to call into question another man's fitness for public office, or to describe that other man as a "clear and present danger," would actually make a great comedy routine, akin to Charles Manson warning his daughter that her new boyfriend seems a little weird -- if we didn't live in an age in which men like Reich were actually taken seriously by the press, quoted as authorities, invited to speak on college campuses, and engaged as advisors to presidents.

In light of the gravity and respect with which such a man's statements are currently treated in the public square, there is nothing funny about the situation at all.

A soapbox preacher for a global death cult, who in a more rational age might easily be dismissed as a slavering lunatic, is now questioning someone else's fitness for office. And many normal people -- your neighbors, coworkers, and friends -- are listening to him soberly as though he speaks with moral authority.

Where has America gone?

Daren Jonescu writes about politics, philosophy, education, and the decline of civilization at http://darenjonescu.com/.