Impeachable offenses

Every day I see a new story from one of the major media outlets asking if what ever it was that Trump did that day is an "impeachable offense". So far, the answer, no matter what the issue, has to be no.

This is not to say that Trump hasn't and isn't committing acts that would fall under the definition of a high crime or misdemeanor. It just takes more than the commission of a high crime or misdemeanor to get impeached.

The first step in impeachment is for the House of Representatives to pass articles of impeachment. Currently we have a Republican controlled House and nothing that Trump has done, so far, has been bad enough to get articles of impeachment passed in the House and so for all practical purposes Trump has yet to do anything impeachable.

This of course doesn't mean it is impossible for Trump to be impeached, he could do something so terrible that the Republicans in the House would decide that not voting for impeachment would be worse for their political careers than voting for impeachment, but I hope that doesn't happen. If Trump were to do something that destructive we would all be suffering and so I consider this a really horrible possibility.

There is also the possibility of Democrats winning a majority in the house, or at least a large enough minority that impeachment could be a possibility. This means,of course, waiting until after the mid-term elections in 2018. It also means that Democratic candidates will have to over come the effect of the gerrymandered districts that are designed to prevent them from winning. There is a tremendous amount of backlash against Trump currently and the party in the Oval Office tends to not fare very well during mid-term elections so it isn't impossible, but it won't be easy.

The only other option for impeachment is staying so informed and so involved that enough Republican House members feel the pressure to a point that they would stand against their party's leader. This won't be easy but it may be the best possibility. We have to remember though that this won't be about any particular action Trump takes, it is going to be about holding him accountable for all of his actions. We may be stuck with Trump for a while, so that is something we need to be doing no matter what.