The Impeachment Threat Is Leading A Crazed Trump Ever Deeper Into Darkness

© RICHARD CODOR

No American is above the law, least of all the president despite the many protections of that office enshrined in the Constitution.  But in the context of the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, what is to be done when he is not just unwilling to acknowledge limits of any sort on his conduct -- including the safeguards in said Constitution designating Congress as a check on a rogue president -- while openly declaring that no kind of accountability is legitimate and threatening a civil war if he is removed from office? 

If your answer is "Move to Canada," then you are not taking this seriously, because after nearly three years of crap, corruption and criminality, Trump endangers the very future of our democracy and obeisance to that Constitution. 

If your answer is "Work on Senate Republicans," then you understand that the only way to get rid of Trump is with their support, an abstraction at this point that still might not move him even were that long shot come to pass. 

Are you depressed yet? 

If somehow you are not, check out a terrifying video clip of an unhinged Trump seated next to the Finnish president in the Oval Office and later at a press conference on Wednesday as he rants, raves, continues to melt down and, as ever, denies and deflects when inconveniently confronted by anything that collides with his alternate reality. 

In that reality, the Mueller report on the Russia scandal is a deep-state plot.  His presidential oath-shattering attempts to extort the Ukrainian president to dish dirt on his leading Democratic opponent for the presidency is okey-dokey since enlisting a foreign power in an election campaign, as Russia infamously did in 2016, is well within his rights. The help he is getting from Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo, Attorney General Barr and lawyer-fixer Rudy Giuliani in this dirty laundry effort is most welcome and just fine.  His Democratic impeachment foes are a bunch of traitors.  Oh, and pharmaceutical companies are behind the impeachment push because his administration is working to lower drug prices.   

While it should be noted that Giuliani is so batshit loony that he actually makes Trump seem vaguely sane by comparison, all of this leaves an off-the-rails Trump even less fit to carry out duties he has botched or simply ignored since his inauguration, while finding time to cage migrant children, start trade wars, embrace autocrats, roll back environmental reforms and weaponize the Justice Department.  

Writes attorney and Trump nemesis George Conway, who is married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, in The Atlantic:

You don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, and you don't need to be a mental-health professional to see that something's very seriously off with Trump -- particularly after nearly three years of watching his erratic and abnormal behavior in the White House. Questions about Trump's psychological stability have mounted throughout his presidency.  But those questions have been coming even more frequently amid a recent escalation in Trump’s bizarre behavior, as the pressures of his upcoming reelection campaign, a possibly deteriorating economy, and now a full-blown impeachment inquiry have mounted.  And the questioners have included those who have worked most closely with him.

But back to those Senate Republicans. 

House Democrats are pushing for drafting articles of impeachment centered on the Ukraine scandal by Thanksgiving, which means the articles would reach the Senate early in the new year. 

At least 20 Republicans would have to join every Democrat in voting "guilty" after a Senate-conducted impeachment trial in order to reach the two-thirds supermajority needed to remove Trump from office. 

Among the problems with that scenario is that hypothetically the Republicans could block a trial, which would result in Democrats throwing themselves at the mercy of a Trump-infected Supreme Court, while the likelihood of there being 20 Republicans who would join Democrats to convict is, as I said above, a long shot abstraction. 

The disparities between Senate Republicans' private and public views are complex.  But they basically boil down to their needing Trump because they like enough of his policies and want to keep winning elections, never mind that he has turned the GOP into a cult-like political party, and to break ranks with him would be an ego-bruising admission that they were wrong all along. 

I happen to think that all is not lost, merely mostly lost. 

If there are to be mass defections, the exodus will start with rank-and-file Republicans up for reelection who understand, as the House impeachment juggernaut gathers steam and Trump continues to lose his shit as he gins up new scandals, his deny-and-deflect defense strategy fails to get traction beyond the Fox News echo chamber and his poll numbers sink further under water, that they're in big trouble.   

When it comes to taking a hit for Trump and preserving one's own political skin, that long shot abstraction starts to become a little less so. 

All we need now is a tipping point.  Please!