IMPEACHMENT AT LAST

Not to brag,  but in December of 2016 I posted these words about newly elected president Donald Trump on this very blog:

I'm saying that some kind of impeachment is possible in the next four years.  Understand, I'm not just predicting this out of angry sour grapes or my personal intense dislike of the man, I'm just honestly looking at him through media reports on his manner and disposition and finding that he is probably a psychopath, with inflated self esteem and an inability to care about any other person in the world.  Meaning that he very well may stumble into something impeachable as he childishly tries to increase his own wealth and importance...

I can honestly say that that opinion was far from being particularly insightful or prophetic; I think any person looking at Donald Trump's behavior as both candidate and unlikely president could  easily see this day coming.  It's always seemed inevitable.

Trump has lived his life like a human bulldozer, utilizing his father's wealth and successful real estate business to match his own hugely inflated self image.  And that wealth (according to The New York Times, Trump's father gave  him hundreds of millions of dollars over the years) has allowed to get away with multiple bankruptcies, hundreds of lawsuits, and nineteen separate charges of sexual assault.   And all the while he has promoted himself as a self made billionaire and "stable genius."  
But soon that stable genius may very well join a small but exclusive club of impeached presidents; yes, after months of prodding from other members of her party, last Monday Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally did the right thing and began impeachment proceedings against Trump.  It wasn't his violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution, his obstruction of justice or his payoffs to a porn star and a centerfold that finally pushed Pelosi over the edge.  No, it was the news that a  (still unknown) whistle blower inside the White House  heard Trump on a phone call pushing the president of the country of Ukraine into launching an investigation of Joe Biden's son as a way to smear his Democratic challenger before the 2020 election.  Trump appears to have gone as far as withholding congressionally approved financial aid to that country if the investigation did not begin.  In other words, he pressured a foreign country to aid him in an election, even using the with holding of US tax dollars as pressure.  This is certainly no small thing for any elected official to do; it appears criminal.  
Predictably, Trump has claimed that he did nothing wrong, and that his phone conversation with the Ukrainian leader was "perfect"(?).  But, thankfully, Pelosi and other Democrats in the house disagree, and so the process has begun.  
Personally, I think this is absolutely the right thing to do, even though the odds of him being removed by the Senate (which would require sixty votes) are small, we cannot as a country continue to pretend that the past three years haven't been the insane, chaotic mess that they have been.  From his openly bigoted tweets and statements, to his numerous lies and childish boasts, to his open corruption, there has never been a president like Trump before, and it is right to for Pelosi and company to show the world that not all Americans are accepting of his behavior.  Even if he isn't removed from office, he will join the exclusive club of impeached presidents that includes Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton (Nixon resigned before his inevitable impeachment), and that will always be a stain on his reign.  
There has been much speculation in the press that Trump being impeached may actually help in 2020, since it will fire up the cultists in his base and perhaps alienate swing voters.  While the prospect of Trump being a two term president is horrifying in the extreme, I still feel that these proceedings are the right thing for the house to do morally.  Future presidents must be made aware that there are limits to their power, and abuses of those limits as severe as Trump's must not be condoned for the good of the country.