THE END IS NEAR

He’ll be gone by Valentine’s Day. That’s my prediction and I’m sticking to it.

Betting against Trump, of course, is dicey. I was sure that Stormy Daniels would do him in. And what other politician could have survived the pussy tapes? Or the Russian collusion “witch hunt”?

This time, though, it’s different. I knew he was a goner the minute I heard Pelosi was opening the impeachment investigation. My FB post: “The beginning of the end has arrived” (Sept. 24). 

Truth is emerging at a staggering pace. Not “alternative facts” or “fake news.” But the truth of Trump’s danger to this country. There will be more, much more, revealed in coming months.

The Ukraine fiasco, wherein Trump attempted to extort political dirt in exchange for military aid, will prove but a piece of a broader pattern of venal, perfidious behavior by the President. My years of working close to politics, politicians, and bureaucrats taught me this: No matter how bad things look, they are always worse. 

Democrats, however, are smart to focus their attack on Trump’s Ukraine shakedown, even though it may prove a relatively small part of this Administration’s wholesale corruption. In my former career as an environmental activist, I was closely involved with getting fired several agency heads in Michigan state government– mainly due to their incompetency. I learned that what finally puts the nail in their coffin (so to speak) can be an arguably minor scandal. Not big-picture corruption or broad ineptitude, which anyone close to the situation may know to be true, but some untoward, stinky incident that everyone can understand. 

Until now, I’ve been befuddled by Democrats’ hapless reaction to Trump’s lunacy. No more. They now are rising to the moment with uncharacteristic focus and discipline, hardened by ugly lessons of the past two-and-a-half years. Perhaps the nadir of Republicans’ smug indecency was Lewandowsky’s smirking appearance before Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee. No more.

Now Pelosi and Schiff are in charge. They have elevated their leadership to meet this moment. They’ve recognized the Ukraine/whistle-blower incident for what it is, seized it, and Trump is done for. Politically-dead man walking.

There is an irresistible momentum to end this national nightmare (as Ford branded the Nixon downfall). As investigations blossom, as more whistle blowers go public, as any remaining internal checks are silenced, as public opinion swings in favor of impeachment, as cracks grow in the Republican ramparts – Trump is going to lose it. I mean, really lose it. 

His behavior isn’t normal – not just for a president, but for anyone who isn’t bat-shit crazy. If you had a family member obsessed with television news, reacting with blizzards of incoherent tweets, talking endlessly about conspiracy and treason and hanging spies and a new Civil War – you’d hide his car keys, lock up sharp instruments, and seek medical help. But how are you going to hide the nuclear codes from this guy? What’s to stop him from going over the cliff and dragging along the country? (See my story, Storm Clouds Gathering.)

Trump’s pathology of malignant narcissism makes him capable of anything in order to retain his reign as the mad king of America. To preserve his delusions, he won’t hesitate to sacrifice institutions, reputations, laws, even national security. 

Will they have to carry him out of office in a straightjacket? I wouldn’t rule it out. However it happens, the end is near.

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