The Impeachment of Donald J. Trump

Since he was elected by a minority of Americans (and Russians), many have asked the question, “Will Donald Trump last out his full term in office?”

Some have speculated that he would become too bored or too annoyed by the amount of work it required to be president and just quit. Some have suggested that due to his severe psychological issues and disregard for proper behavior, it would be only a matter of time until he was impeached.

Still others mused that his head might expand to the size of a house and he might accidentally swallow himself while trying to eat a taco bowl. Those people are most likely a bit used to disappointment in life.

With the daily revelations coming out recently and specifically, the foolish choice by Trump to think he could bully the director of the FBI…former Director now thanks to Trump…out of continuing a criminal investigation into Trump’s associate, the likelihood of Donald J. Trump being impeached and removed from office has become greater than Sean Spicer opening an account at Monster.com (it’s a job website, not the name of a blog recounting everything Trump has said and done).

The argument could be made that Trump is not actually a smart man. His wealth was inherited and despite that, he lost much of it multiple times and his earnings over his lifetime (before being in a position to make Presidential endorsements of his hotels and daughter’s clothing lines) were less than if he had just invested in blue chip stocks.

He lost money running a casino, was forced to settle a lawsuit over a fraudulent university he ran and claimed bankruptcy three times. Not the track record of a brilliant businessman.

What saved him from losing it all were two things, his naturally repulsive personality and cartoonish narcissism. It was The Apprentice reality tv show that rescued him after failing in business and led to his licensing business which accounted for most of his income. Trump was not a genius who crafted himself into a reality-styled persona. He was just lucky that reality tv came along the way it did especially at that time, making a loudmouth, offensive liar the perfect type of person it could use and vice versa. Trump has never been brilliant but he has been good at recognizing the lowest instincts in people and exploiting them…just as he’s done all his life in himself.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist (but maybe someone who would give top secret notes of U.S. rocket scientists to Russia) to see that during the 2008 campaign and after Obama was elected, a swath of racially insecure Americans were threatened and angry about white supremacy losing its supremacy. Trump didn’t invent Birtherism, he merely stole it from the Tea Partiers and claimed it as his own. Seeing what a high profile and big following such racism produced, it wasn’t a big stretch to see him simply continue shouting racist hatred to launch and energize his candidacy.

Trump thinks he won the election because he’s so smart (that’s what everyone around him says…because they want to keep their jobs) but like the cat who thinks the world has gone dark because he has put his head under the bed, Trump is deluded about reality. He doesn’t understand that it was simply bad timing for the country and good timing for him, just happenstance that he ran in 2016 and won. Had Trump run one term earlier, in 2012 against Obama, he would have been destroyed. Even with his “clever” plan to either collaborate with or at least encourage Russia to manipulate voters to help him win. I put quotes around “clever” because this clearly wasn’t Trump’s idea, it was the Russians and it made so much sense for them to implement for the very reason that oblivious Trump represented a useful fool for Russia like they never had before. What other Republican would they ever have worked so hard to swing an election towards?

One of his “talents” that Trump kept hyping in the campaign was what a great negotiator he was. Keeping in mind that he was a failure at most businesses he ever ran, there was no proof, just Trump’s own bluster and lies to support this. In fact, perhaps a majority of people would have faired much better in the world of business had they inherited $100 million from their father.

But because Trump never had to earn his initial fortune, he was always able to use the wealth handed to him on a silver platter as leverage to bully others. Trump thinks bullying is negotiating. Threatening people is negotiating. Lying to people is negotiating. Refusing to pay people you owe is negotiating. What seems very apparent now is that Trump really doesn’t know how to negotiate much of anything successfully, he only knows how to threaten those in weaker positions and ends up bowing to those more powerful, as his worship of dictators around the world displays.

As we’ve seen since he’s been president, he has failed in every situation that required negotiation. He threatened House Republicans to vote for Paul Ryan’s anti-healthcare bill and failed to even get a vote. Then he had to go crawling to the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus and offer them everything they wanted to get them to sign onto the second version of the bill…which also made Trump go back on all of his campaign promises on what he would support to replace the ACA. So in that negotiation, Trump folded, lost on all of his points and handed everything to the other party.

In dealing with China, having insisted for 2 years that they were a currency manipulator, stealing our jobs and unfairly competing, Trump’s “negotiation” with them was to reverse his claim about them being currency manipulators and promise trade deals even better for them (and worse for the U.S.) as long as they would help stop North Korea from being scary…which in the end, they haven’t. China played Trump easily, getting everything they wanted while actually increasing trade with North Korea so once again, Trump negotiated away every benefit for the U.S. and gave the other party everything they wanted and more.

Now let’s look at how he’s negotiated on the investigation into his campaign’s ties with Russia. Knowing only bullying with the power given to him, when acting Attorney General Sally Yates notified Trump that his NSA, Michael Flynn, had secretly been dealing with Russia and Turkey, Trump fired Yates (she also refused to defend his Muslim ban, also a factor) and did not fire Flynn until those “terrible” leaks allowed that crucial news to get to the public. Lying constantly about Russia connections and having his staff do the same, it came out yesterday that Trump tried to interfere with the FBI’s investigation of Flynn and ties to Russia, pulling FBI Director James Comey into a private meeting and asking him to drop the investigation. Trump went on to fire Comey and after a day of lies presented as explanations, admitted he did so because he wanted the Russia investigation to end and Comey wouldn’t agree to do it.

What “smart” president would attack, threaten and badmouth the FBI Director who likely had all kinds of devastating revelations in his back pocket that could destroy him? Did Trump really think he could scare Comey into silence by making up the threat that he had tapes of Comey’s discussion with him? Especially when Comey knows he didn’t say anything he shouldn’t have? And Trump was too “smart” to know that making such a threat would only make Comey more likely to release information that was damaging to Trump? As mentioned in the past about other politicians, Trump has the courage of his ignorance. He’s too stupid to be afraid of lighting the fuse of a bomb that will blow up in his face.

Taken along with everything else that’s out there, it should not be surprising that investigations prove this to turn out to be what it appears to be, a crime of trying to cover up the original crime of collusion with an enemy of the U.S. to corrupt the elections and democracy of the U.S.

Trump can’t help himself, this is how he has always been. He’s lied, cheated, stole and bullied, thinking that is negotiating. People wanted a businessman running the country? These are the business tools of Trump’s trade (who’s more unethical than real estate investors?). In the most important negotiations he’s ever had, that may ultimately lead to his going down in history as perhaps the greatest traitor and criminal to become president, his manner of “negotiating” as he always has is digging a deeper and deeper hole.

In business, you can bribe and be bribed and get away with it because cameras aren’t following everything you do. You can fire whoever you want including whistleblowers and usually escape any downside. You can threaten, sue and intimidate those you see as your enemies knowing that your advantage in wealth and power gives you a massive advantage to overcome them.

But “smart” Trump didn’t understand that you can’t do all of that in the highest political office in the land.

No Donald, you can’t get away with betraying the country and having your campaign run by people colluding with Russia. You can’t bully the Director of the FBI into pledging blind loyalty and dropping investigations of crimes that people close to you (and perhaps you) have committed. You can’t use your power to force unconstitutional actions and Executive Orders on the nation. Trump seems to think that as President, he is a dictator and can do whatever he wants. The Brilliant Don proves almost every day how ignorant he is. Unfortunately for him, ignorance of the law and the law and ethical behavior is no excuse.

Trump has no moral boundaries since like some children of the wealthy and powerful, he believes he deserves to have whatever he wants and that justifies whatever he has to do to get it.

That game doesn’t work when you sit in the White House. All of the clumsy machinations Trump has brought with him as his only skills have already, in less than four months, led to his committing acts that are leading even Republicans to accept the possibility of his eventual impeachment.

The impeachment of Donald J. Trump may indeed be coming…especially if Democrats win back The House in 2018. Whether it does or doesn’t, indictments of Michael Flynn and others are coming and as those surrounding Trump are brought down, his power, standing and poll numbers will drag him and those Republicans supporting him down into depths that will be inescapable.

The man who shouldn’t have been president…may soon become the man who couldn’t be president.