Majority in House has voted for second impeachment charge against US President Donald Trump for obstruction of Congress. Voting is still underway.
One of the few indisputable facts of Donald Trump's impeachment is that he would not now stand in disgrace but for his own heedless behavior and his commitment to never apologizing and never backing down.
That this behavior could also be what he credits for his election is but one of the many paradoxes of the President's reign.
Trump was elected on the basis of his promise to act as a wrecking ball in Washington and a messianic personality that caused him to declare that "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters." This declaration was evidence that he understood the dark charisma he possessed -- his loyalists were more a cult than a political movement -- and could imagine exercising power in the most extreme way.
It is the President's extreme view of himself as the "king" his father told him he was that came to the fore as he became president and, isolated in the trappings of White House pomp and deference, became ever more imperious. One by one, those who spoke truth to his power were pushed out and replaced by sycophants who became "acting" rather than fully empowered officials. Ever mindful that they could be pushed out of their positions, these yes men and yes women acted as mirrors of his deviant desires.
The original sin in this most acute crisis -- his impeachment -- was the President's decision to participate in, if not initiate, the weapons-for-dirt scheme he practiced in hopes of getting Ukraine to help him in the 2020 election.
Trump has denied any quid pro quo, but, reacting in a spasm of overconfidence, he made public a rough transcript of the "perfect" call he made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which suggests otherwise. It was on this call that Trump asked for investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and a conspiracy theory about 2016 election interference. No evidence suggests a justification any of these investigations, but Trump froze military aid for Ukraine's war against Russia, anyway.
The Ukraine scandal can be called acute because it's the immediate reason for Trump's impeachment, but it is really just a peak moment in a long-running emergency that has gripped the country since Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. Comey, you'll remember, refused to drop his investigation into Russia's actual attack on the 2016 election and declined to offer the President the kind of personal loyalty he demanded but no FBI director should give.
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