It had to happen sooner or later

You don't nominate and elect a president who for decades has manifestly lacked a moral compass and who has been caught repeatedly throughout his career breaking the law and cutting ethical corners without a substantial risk that he's not only going to continue to do it but eventually get caught sooner rather than later.

When he lacks personal judgment and filters, is incredibly ill-informed in almost every aspect of his job, and is not politically savvy, all the salesmanship and cunning in self-promotion in the world isn't going to save him.

I feel guilty about this, frankly, but while am not completely happy about saying "I told you so" about Donald Trump, I'm petty enough to feel at least a little satisfaction. Yes, it's outweighed by my wish that the Republican President was named Rubio or Bush or Romney or even Cruz, although I wouldn't be absolutely delighted with that last option, and my regret that Donald Trump has done the long-term damage to the nation, the Republican party, and the conservative movement that he has. I take no pleasure in the fact that despite the headlong plunge into ideological extremism  the Democratic party has indulged in every bit as recklessly as has the Republican party, as a direct result of the Trump experience it's likely to dominate our next several elections and perhaps the American political landscape for as much as a generation. It's going to be awfully hard for the GOP and for conservatives generally to live Donald Trump down; after all, despite his delusions and those of his supporters he hasn't accomplished nearly what Richard Nixon did in the White House, and despite both the personal animus of so many "progressives" and his own admitted personality flaws Nixon was both a much smarter man than is Donald Trump but a far better president and yes, a far better human being as well. Watergate pretty much blew over after an election cycle or two. But despite having a great deal more respect for Mike Pence than for Donald Trump, and more sympathy for the vice-president than most opponents of the current president have, he's no Jerry Ford. He lacks the experience and, I suspect, the personality to be the healer Mr. Ford was, even though I have no doubt that as president he would have the will to be precisely that.

No, the GOP has cut off its nose to spite its face by defending the indefensible so stubbornly and so long in defending Donald Trump. Nixon might have been disliked in some quarters, but at least the smarter of his critics had a grudging respect for the man. Donald Trump is not a man apt to inspire much respect among people who actually know much about him. The blunder of the Republican party and of the conservative movement in tying itself to Mr. Trump is going to be costly and it will take a long time for either to recover from it.

Let's summarize what we know about the Ukraine scandal. We know that the whistleblower, an operative in the CIA, made allegations on the basis of information she had received from multiple sources that the president offered Ukraine a quid pro quo in terms of foreign aid  if it would come up with "dirt" on Joe Biden's son with regard to allegations which it had in fact already thoroughly investigated (as had various Americans) and determined- as had they- were groundless.  We know that far from being a "spy," in notifying the Inspector General of this information she was acting precisely as the law required her to do under the circumstances although Mr. Trump seems unaware of that requirement. We know that although the information was classified she was revealing it to individuals who were fully authorized to receive such classified information and that, again, it was her legal duty to reveal it and to reveal it to precisely those individuals. We know that Mr. Trump- tone-deaf as he is in ethical and constitutional matters- protested his innocence and the completely benign nature of his telephone conversation with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

We know that the White House issued a summary (not a transcript; ample opportunity for "spin" was allowed by the format) which Mr. Trump apparently thought would be exculpatory but which in fact confirmed the accusations in every significant detail. We know that Mr. Trump's Republican defenders argue that the whistleblower's allegations were based on hearsay. We know that this response seems rather beside the point because the White House summary of the conversation itself confirms those allegations.

Further, in line with the statements of numerous high-ranking officials of the Trump administration to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation that the White House staff actively concealed information from Mr. Trump and ignored his orders precisely in order to protect him from the consequences of his own rash and ill-considered decisions, special precautions of dubious propriety and legality were taken to protect the secrecy of this particular conversation in such a manner as to suggest that individuals in the White House, if not Mr. Trump himself, were aware of its impropriety and of the possible consequences for the president if its contents became public. We know that these efforts raise questions about what can only be described as an attempted cover-up of what seems by the account of the White House itself to be improper and illegal behavior by the president and itself appears to violate the law.

We know that the revelation of this information appears to have caused a decisive shift in public attitudes toward the impeachment of the president. While polls have previously indicated strong public opposition to impeachment, an NPR-PBS survey in the wake of the revelations showed support for at least the initiation of the process suddenly and dramatically growing- assuming that, as the White House summary seems to confirm, the allegations are accurate. 49% now favor the beginning of the impeachment process to 46% opposed. That's an increase in support of ten percent.

 A Politico-Morning Consult survey in the wake of the revelations still shows more opposing beginning impeachment process than favoring it, with 36% in favor and 49% opposed. But even that shows a seven percent rise in support for the initiation of proceedings. A Hill-Harris X survey showed an increase of 12 percent in those favoring the initiation of an impeachment investigation, with 47% favoring it and 42% opposed. A Harvard CAPS-Harris survey showed a 50-50 split, a 12 percent increase. It showed 52% of independents in favor of beginning the process; only 24% of independents and 40% of all voters supported it in a survey taken in July when Robert Mueller testified before Congress. But the NPR survey showed only 44% of independents favoring the initiation of the process and 50% opposing it.

Two words of caution are in order here. The liberal bias from which the media suffer can be clearly shown in the sloppiness with which these polls have been recorded. The questions being asked are not about whether Mr. Trump should be impeached, but rather about whether investigations should begin as the first step in that process. That distinction has frequently been ignored in reporting on the dramatic shift that has occurred in public opinion.

Secondly, given the fiercely polarized political landscape, even many of Mr. Trump's fiercest opponents assume that even if the president is impeached by the House, his conviction by a Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely no matter how strong the evidence warranting it might be. This is not the Watergate era, in which patriotism would necessarily trump partisanship. While Mr. Trump's impeachment seems increasingly likely, that does not automatically equate to even a probability that he will be convicted and removed from office. Another difference between the Watergate scandal and this one is that Mr. Trump lacks Mr. Nixon's political instincts and tends to be a great deal more stubborn. He isn't nearly as likely to resign even if his conviction were to appear likely.

I don't entirely rule out the possibility that if things continue to develop in the direction they seem to be at the moment, enough Republican senators might vote in favor of conviction to make Mr. Trump the first president in American history to actually be removed from office as a result of impeachment. But it's a sad commentary on the health of the body politic that at the moment I think the most likely scenario is Mr. Trump's impeachment by the Democratic House and acquittal by the Republican Senate, but on terms likely to be far more damaging to the Republican party than Watergate was simply because this time it will continue to stand by the president far past the point at which his cause will be seen by the American people to be at all defensible. I've said before that I would be shocked were Mr. Trump to be re-elected. But unless dramatic and unforeseen developments somehow throw a great deal into question which seems to be incontestable now, the likelihood appears to me to be increasing of a defeat so devastating that the Republican party's status as a viable agency of opposition to the president's Democratic successor will be thrown into question and its effectiveness as a national political party compromised drastically long-term.

And that, when all is said and done, is what I expected when Donald Trump was elected. Given his character and his personality, that he would act as inappropriately as president as he had during his entire adult life seemed inevitable, and under the beam of the hottest and most powerful spotlight on earth, I've never seen how he could avoid eventually being held accountable.

When a large percentage of a political candidate's operatives either lie or go to jail or both about improper contacts with a foreign power seeking to influence an American election, and when that candidates repeatedly says that he sees nothing wrong in using information obtained by them, and when that candidate has not only the ethical and political tone-deafness of Donald Trump and his sense of personal entitlement and invulnerability, this is the only possible outcome. And when that candidate has gone to such lengths to obstruct and interfere with an investigation into his possible implication in a previous and similar matter once before, the lack of a smoking gun does not change the fact that this time, Mr. Trump seems to have been caught red-handed.

Given the fact that he is Donald Trump, it had to happen sooner or later.