Newsweek’s inability to let go of Hillary Clinton’s loss is reaching critical levels of derangement. False hope seems to fester within Newsweek’s staff that somehow, against all odds, Trump could be thrown out of office and Clinton will take his place.

Since there’s little hope that Trump will fall over dead, Newsweek returns its sites to the Russia investigation in that Trump will be ejected from office if he is indicted in the Russian probe.

This is not an exaggeration. In fact, the title of the Newsweek article making this claim is “Hillary Clinton Could Still Become President If Russia Probe Finds Conspiracy Evidence.”

That’s right. It wasn’t merely a suggestion or side note within the article, it was the focus of the article itself.

Newsweek backs up the headline with an essay by a progressive law professor from Harvard, Larry Lessig, who said that if collusion with Russia to sway the 2016 elections is discovered by the probe, then Trump could be impeached out of office. Offering no how or why, Newsweek adds that Pence could also be impeached, or he could resign. This would make way for President Paul Ryan.

Then Lessig finished by proposing a political hail mary that according to Newsweek could totally happen:

Given that there is “no mechanism in American law for a new election,” nor “a mechanism for correcting the criminal results of the previous election,” Ryan ought to nominate “the person defeated by the treason of his own party, and then step aside, and let her become President,” Lessig went on to say.

Outside of the far-fetched hope that the Russia probe will produce anything substantial that ties Trump to election bending Russian collusion, our Harvard law professor seems to dismiss the fact that the Constitution actually does provide an outline about who takes over in the event of the president leaving office. Unfortunately for him, Newsweek, and its readers, there is no wording that states “the last election’s runner-up should be President.”

You are more likely to be struck by lightning five times in a row than this scenario coming to fruition. What’s more, Lessig seems to know this.

“This is one way it could happen,” Lessig said. “But that’s very different from saying I think it will happen, or should happen, or [that] the evidence is there for it to happen.”

Which means the fact that Newsweek is peddling Lessig’s fantasy as a scenario that could happen shows the full extent of their instability over Clinton’s loss.

But let’s say that Newsweek knows that Lessig’s scenario is a fantasy on par with a Shrek movie, and they’re writing this article because they know their still bewildered audience would gobble it up and share it with their friends. If that is the case, then Newsweek is peddling derangement for the sake of clicks, and getting their leftist readers worked up over what they know is an entirely unlikely future.

That’s just cruel. That’s like telling your kid you’re taking them to Disneyland, then dropping them off at the dentist.

So either Newsweek is so unhinged over Clinton’s loss that they interpret what are clearly fantasies as real possibilities, or they’re peddling fantasies to a readership desperate for hope just to get some clicks.

Either way, Newsweek does not look good here.