During the 2016 campaign Donald Trump famously boasted that he could ‘shot someone on Fifth Avenue’ and not lose a single supporter. While we have no instances of Presidential attempted murder it would seem that Trump was perfectly on target with that pronouncement it is also a useful metaphor illustrating the absurdity of the GOP’s defense of Donald Trump as he faces near certain impeachment.

Let us suppose that Trump did stand on Fifth Avenue and fired a handgun at an innocent person calmly stating that he was going to kill that person, but being unversed the way of guns, he missed and the round going wildly off target and hitting no one.

The GOP defense of Trump starts out that he never shot at anyone, but that falls quickly as witness after witness come forward swearing to the facts that Trump did indeed shot at someone

The GOP then falls back to a defense built around, ‘well, he didn’t intend to kill,’ but again the witness dispel such arguments using Trump own statements that he was going to kill.

Which brings up to the current and most absurd defense.

“Well, he *missed*, no one was hurt so not only is he perfectly okay we should let him keep the gun!”

I have seen, repeatedly and all the damn place that because the Ukrainians didn’t actually deliver then Trump’s crime just goes *poof* and he should be safe from impeachment. Just as with the hypothetical I laid out, attempting to do a bad thing and with intent but doing it badly does not in any way excuse the bad thing.

We have to take the gun away or he will try to shoot someone else, and we must impeach and remove the president for abusing the powers of his officer for personal political gain. This will not happen because in the GOP mind there is no crime so terrible that it can be punished if that in any manner or form benefits the Democratic Party.

I have no doubts that Trump should be impeached and removed from office. Just on the basis of his action dealing with the new Ukrainian President and Trump attempts to get that man and his administration to start an ‘investigation’ whose purpose was to bolster Trump political fortune is enough.

Arguments defending Trump tend to fall into a few camps.

• There was no ‘Quid pro Quo.’ This defense is untenable. For one thing there is growing evidence of the explicit favor-for-favor exchange and do not forget that when the Ukrainian President brought up the desire to purchase particular weaponry Trump responded with “I want you to do us a favor, though.” But setting aside the favor-for-favor even without any pressure campaign at all requesting a foreign power to take official action to damage a political opponent is an abuse of office, plane and simple.
• Trump Did Nothing Illegal. One defensive argument is centered on the concept that asking a foreign power is help in an election is not in itself illegal. I have seen some counter with this with arcane election regulation, that the assistance itself has a monetary value and getting anything of monetary value from a foreign nation or citizen for electioneering is illegal. This may very well be true on the face of it. Just as lying under oath is a crime even if you are set up with malicious intent the perjury remains illegal. However even is something was legal doesn’t mean it removes it from being an impeachable offence. The President has the power to declassify any information that he wishes, but if he did so with a battle plan so that an enemy could act upon it, while the action itself would be legal it would also be impeachable.
• There was No Investigation. This one really tries to lay out a ‘No harm no foul’ excuse as though this were just a pick-up game of basketball between friendly rivals but this is our highest office and the most powerful position on the planet not amateur athletics. Simply because the Ukrainian President did not actually go the microphone and issue the damaging statement that Hunter Biden was under investigation, which would have cleared the way for an entirely disingenuous propaganda campaign, does not mean the attempts to gain that favor is forgotten. Trump abused his office and the position of president to politically personally profit.

It is an irony that the same people who have repeated conspiracy theories for decades about Senator Edward Kennedy seeking Soviet assistance in 1984 to defeat President Reagan are now utterly fine with foreign assistance as long as it helps them. That the same people who wailed and bemoan Obama’s lackluster response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine have no concerns about a man of their party or their political damaging Ukraine’s ability to defend itself in a shooting war with Russia as long it has damages the Democratic Party of the United States of America.

To me it now looks as though impeachment is a foregone conclusion. That is not to say that Trump’s removal from office is assured. If I were to place bets today I would wager that the House passes their articles of impeachment and that the Senate would acquit. With Trump commanding 85% to 90% support within the Republican Party I doubt that there are very many GOP officials willing to publicly cross their party’s popular leader. While I believe that evidence is high and continue to grow that Trump has abused the office of the Presidency for personal political ends I do not think that GOP member are willing to risk getting a mini-trump primary opponent and will take their chances in the general election. At this time and with the current electorate that is the safe political decision, it only sacrifices honor, ethics, and rule of law.

There are many Republicans that feel that Trump is an aberration, a violation of their party’s political norms, a bolt of lightening that makes a loud noise but lives only a brief life and is soon nothing but a memory. This is wrong.

Trump did not spring to head of the party defeating established and hardline conservatives without the battlefield’s terrain well-prepared ahead of his advance. For decades as the GOP pursued power they surrendered again and again their principles. Placing victory as the only goal they advanced lies over truth, they celebrated coarse and degrading slanders of their opponents, and donned an impenetrable cloak of hypocrisy. With decades of such actions it is not surprising that Trump stole their party only that someone like Trump didn’t do it earlier. When Trump is gone, either in defeat in 2020, 2024 (shudder), or by impeachment, the party will not revert to some imagined norm Trump has changed the party without a war to drive his influence from the party it will continue with his imprint.

As the nation hurtles towards Trump’s impeachment, and yes it still may not happen but everyday the odds grow, people look back at impeachment of Clinton and the Democratic gains in the following mid-term elections. People on the left fear impeaching Trump will do the same with GOP gains following the likely failure of removing Trump from office. I think such fears are generally misplaced.

The investigation Bill Clinton started a real estate deal that to many smelled of fraud. Eventually the investigation spun off into his extramarital affairs and the civil suits that followed. When the Starr learned that not only that there was physical evidence of Clinton’s affair and after failing to convince Monica to ‘flip’ on her lover, he set a perjury trap for the president. A trap that Clinton proved willing to leap into when he perjured himself and lied under oath, which produced the charge of obstructing justice that powered the impeachment charges. Clinton’s defender tend to frame the entire thing as ‘lying about a blow-job’ but the facts is that it was perjury, it was under oath, and Clinton was disbarred as a lawyer. However despite the actual violation of his oath the emotional reaction from the general population was one that empathized with Clinton. Many people could see just how easily they would react the same way. There’s a reason why there is a common saying that ‘everyone lies about sex.’ In the end the Republicans came off looking puritanical, petty, and prudish.

What is threatening Trump is wholly different in its emotional tenor. It is not sexual in nature; it does not endear empathic feelings but rather is a direct abuse of his position as president. Even setting aside the heightened partisan culture this scandal is not one where people see themselves in the actions. That is not to say the Senate would remove him from office. No, the GOP base is enthusiastically in Trump’s corner and they will hold their representatives feet to the fire. What I think will not happen is that persuadable people will turn against the Democrats for impeachment. Not on the facts as we currently know them. Such fears should not dissuade officials from doing their duty. Right now around the world US Armed forces personnel are putting their lives on the line for this country and for what it stands for, it is not too much to demand that politicians be willing to risk an office.

And just like Captain Renault in Casablanca  the state of surprise is entirely contrived. Donald Trump strikes me as a person who has never ever been held accountable for any single action or misdeed in his entire life. Credibly accused of draft dodging, tax evading, charity abusing, sexual assaulting, and who knows what else he has escape any serious consequence which has fed his ego, inflated his sense of entitlement, and made this non-drinker drunk with power so it is wholly unsurprising that he has abused the office of president and attempted to get foreign powers to interfere in our elections. I do believe that we are now on the fast track to impeachment, though I seriously doubt that the Republican Senators would cut their own electoral throats and remove him from office. Power and position are far more important than any oath of office and even a pretense of honor.

For about 23 years I was a registered Republican but the growing unhinged base and the party’s embrace of torture while clutching their pearls over equality for LGBTQ persons drove me from the party and every day that Trump remains in power and with better than 85% of the base enthusiastically supporting him I only grow prouder of my decision. I hope that the disaster that results from this administration burns the GOP to the foundation because only then is there any hope of a rational opposition party.

Odds are, but it is not certain, that the Democratic nominee for next year’s presidential contest will be one of the leading three candidates currently leading in the primary. While it is possible one of them will suddenly self-destruct and be replaced with a lower tier candidate, with each passing debate and fund raising quarter it grows increasingly unlikely. So we’re looking at the nominee being Biden, Warren, or Sanders and each represents a fundamentally different approach to the current political situation.

Biden is the conventional wisdom and ‘return to normalcy’ candidate. His approach is to treat the environment as an aberration and that a return to the past is not only preferable but also possible. Bi-partisanship and norm following would be the focus of his potential administration making him popular with risk adverse and older Democratic voters.

Sanders’ position that that the system itself is corrupt and must be swept aside to make room for the improved and golden future. It’s fitting that Sanders holds that position as he is not even a Democrat but rather officially is a Democratic-Socialist. Sanders is a revolutionary and promises a revolt making him popular among the disaffected, and the young.

Warren stands between these two extremes. The reformer Warren’s position is that the system is broken but that it can be repaired, that the old ways are flawed and that revolution is too extreme. It’s noteworthy that Warren isn’t afraid to label herself a ‘capitalist’ nor does she run from the fact that she was once a Republican. She appeals to those desperate for change but unwilling to commit to revolution.

Three candidates, three very different viewpoints on the troubles and the solutions it will be interesting to see which one prevails.

Recently the San Francisco Board of Supervisors officially proclaimed something that has been a common cry for Gun Control activists that the National Rifle Association is a ‘Domestic Terrorist Organization.’ This is absurd when shouted by protesters and idiotic when made as an official statement from supposedly cooler heads.

Terrorism is the use of force with the principle intent of utilizing fear to affect a political process. Certainly some of the cowardly mass murderers were terrorists, slaughtering helpless people at worship, while shopping because of racist and bigoted ideologies, particularly to ignite a ‘race war’ is terrorism. It is also true that the ideology behind it is a terroristic one, without hopeless odds to induce their twisted bigoted beliefs through the political process, no matter the recent successes of blatantly racist politicians and candidates, the ‘radicalization’ of angry young men continue to generate these cowardly murders.

However, that is a long way from the NRA being itself a terrorist organization.

A player, though its powerhouse days may be behind it, in the American political process, the NRA has never sanctioned, endorsed, or encouraged any of the mass murders. The NRA, its endorsements, and its financial contributions have serous impact on the political landscape seriously undercutting any reasonable attempt to define it as a ‘terrorist’ organization.

Labeling the NRA a terrorist organization is not reasonable but it is understandable.

While the NRA has not in any way encouraged or endorsed these murderous attacks it has displayed a callous indifference. Offering nothing more than the empty phrase ‘thoughts and prayers’ while pointing accusing fingers at video games the NRA stubbornly refuses to take any action to prevent these evil acts giving the impression that no amount of bloodshed or pain can ever matter more than their own narrowly defined self interest.

This heartless inaction, in my opinion, will, in the end, cause greater harm to the organization’s goal and objectives than any minor or modest legislative compromise. As I have argued before eventually a cultural tipping point will be reached, a like a dam bursting, the flood that follows will wash away everything that came before. I think it is instructive that in the 2018 election cycle the Democratic Party did not run and hide from a solid stance in favor of more gun control. The old collations have passed away and in this delicate time new ones are forming. Trump harms the Republican’s ability to reach beyond their core base with the college educated and far less devoted suburbs already fleeing to the Democratic party just new cycle of re-districting is about to be begin. The 2020 election will impact the next decade and the dam may already be bursting.