It's Really the Republicans Who Will Impeach Trump.

The Blue Wave. That mythical voting block of outraged Americans who are supposed to vote every Republican on the ballot out of office, and change Congress to a Democratic majority. In other words, the Democrats have learned nothing from the last election, that nothing is a sure thing. There could easily be a Red Wave if once again too many Democrats blow the election off, or once again decided to send their own party a message by voting independent or Republican. Outrage didn't keep Bush II from winning a second term, or keep Trump from winning a first.

But let's humor this counting chickens before they hatch moment. A lot of Trump critics see a shift in power in Congress as the first step in impeaching the president. Many will vote Democrat specifically to remove him from office. The mistaken belief that the only reason Trump hasn't been impeached yet is because the Republicans are protecting him.

Once again, chickens counted prior to hatching. The Democrats are looking ahead to the 2020 election, and how easy it would be to defeat a sitting president as unpopular as Trump. Removing Trump and making Pence president would remove the outrage against the Republicans. As the incumbent, he could easily win the next presidential election. Policy wise, pence would be no different than Trump, only being tactful and low key enough not to piss most Americans off. Had Pence been president instead of a loud blowhard like Trump, repeal of the Affordable Care Act may have happened.

So if it is in the best interest of Democrats not to impeach, does that make Trump safe? Hell no. Because the Democrats are not the party out to get him. Let's look at the facts. The FBI who started investigating Trump, Republican. The Attorney General who recused himself, Republican. The assistant Attorney Genera who picked Mueller to lead the investigation, Republican. The Special Prosecutor investigating Trump now, Republican. Everyone cooperating with the investigation, Republican. All the White House leaks, Republican. Despite Fox News making the Russian Probe look like a smear job by the Democrats, the entire show is being run by Republicans. And if Mueller concludes that Trump has committed a crime, it will be a Republican saying so. It's not like Republicans had no choice but to have an extended year and a half investigation of the president. They so easily short changed an investigation on Kavanaugh to practically pointless, they could have easily done the same with Trump. For the investigation to have gone on this long and gone so deep, the only conclusion that could make sense is that the Republicans are out for blood. Trump's blood.

But why would Republicans be so eager to take down their own president? The easy answer, he is not one of there own. Trump stole the Republican party out from under it's leaders. And here is how he did it. About a decade back the Republicans backed the wrong horse. Bush/Cheney. The Bush presidency became so unpopular that it began to drive off registered Republicans in droves. No sooner did Bush enter his lame duck period than the Republican party began to distance themselves from him. But it was too little too late. That's when the Tea Party came knocking at the Republican's door, and an unholy alliance took place. The Republicans allowed the often radical Tea Party candidates to take over the party because it replaced the party members they lost with new party members. Most of the older Republicans disliked the Tea Party candidates. But they kept the Republican Party viable. The idea was to tolerate them until Obama drove the former Republicans back to their party. Problem was that Obama proved to be too popular a president to drive former Republicans back.

Meanwhile, sitting in the sidelines was Trump. Recognizing the radical turn the Republican Party had taken, he immediately began winning over Tea Party members by becoming a vocal birther, claiming that Obama was born in Kenya, and as not American born, could be removed from office. When Trump announced he was running for president, he did so with a racially bigoted speech painting the Mexicans as rapists and murderers, and vowing to build an impenetrable wall between both countries that he would force Mexico to pay for. In the past Tea Party candidates had been anti immigrant to appease their radical base, but had done so with tempered language as to not drive off moderate voters. Trump realized that the Republican Party had been taken over by radical party members, and further radicalization of the average conservative was taking place due to the skewed reporting of FOX news. He knew that if he ignored the moderates in the party and appealed directly to the radical base, then he had a good chance of winning the primaries.

The Republican establishment was caught off guard by Trump's success. Running a racist and overtly dishonest campaign should not have worked. But it did. Republicans began to worry about the backlash from the independents who's votes decide the election. They worried about Trump's temperament. That he would be a disaster as president, not just damaging the Republican Party, but America itself. And let's not forget that during the primaries Trump managed to insult nearly the entire Republican party, describing all the other candidates as liars and losers, even going as far as insulting John McCain by saying he was no hero for being captured by the enemy in Vietnam. Republicans didn't like Trump. Tea Party candidates hated Trump. They all thought he was a danger to their party and country. None of them wanted him to be the party candidate.

But there was one problem at stopping Trump. What should have been the party's leading candidates were all damaged goods. Jeb Bush for being associated with his brother. Chris Christie for shaking Obamas hand and Bridgegate. George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee all failed to attract voters. The candidates that managed to get votes were from Tea Party, including Mark Rubio, John Kasich and Ted Cruz. Republicans hoped that Cruz could defeat Trump in enough primaries to prevent him from winning the nomination, leading to a contested convention where in a back room a real candidate could be picked. Unfortunately Kasich refused to drop out, splitting his and Cruz's votes and allowing Trump to win enough of the remaining primaries to earn the nomination.

The Republicans had one last trick up their sleeve. A way to keep Trump from winning the White House while putting one of their own in the oval office. Before the primaries were even over, Mitt Romney, who wasn't even a candidate, began campaigning against Donald Trump, calling him unsuitable for office, a fraud, and a lot of other unflattering things. After the convention rumors abounded that the conservatives were getting together to back a counter candidate to Trump. Most likely that candidate would have been Romney. He had zero chance of winning the election, even with Trump and Clinton being the most unpopular candidates in the history of elections. But he didn't need to win. Only disrupt. If Romney only campaigned in the battleground states, and was able to win just a few key states, then no candidate would win the majority votes needed to win the election. If this was to happen, the constitution dictates that the top three candidates go in a runoff election, Which is held in the House of Representatives. Which, in 2016, was controlled by the Republicans. Which means the Republicans could have picked any of the three candidates. And considering they thought Trump was unfit and didn't like him at all, and considering they definitely wouldn't vote for Hillary, then they would have picked Romney. Sure, the Democrats and Trump supporters would accuse Republicans of stealing the election. But this time it would be supported by the constitution. And by the midterms, all forgotten.

But then something happened. Suddenly the RNC backed Trump. There was a push by Republicans to get him elected. The conservative candidate never materialized. Romney suddenly laid off Trump. Some sort of back door deal had been struck. Something Trump promised the RNC, possibly the fact that RNC president Reince Priebus was promised the position of Chief of Staff. The Republican Party may have been behind Trump, but this was the same party that tried to keep him off the ticket, and the same politicians Trump viciously insulted. The only reason why they wanted him to be president was so the Democrats wouldn't have their president in office. They could have done it with Romney. But it was a risk. If Romney didn't win any states, then one of two things would happen. Either the vote would be split handing Hillary an easy victory. Or Trump would win, knowing that the RNC had attempted to steal the election from him, and no longer feeling obligated to side with the Republicans. He just may have ended up being the first President to drop out of his party after winning the election.

This is where I believe the RNC came up with a new plan. Let Trump win. They must have known that Trump was easy pickings for impeachment. And if he was impeached, the better for them. Mike Pence would take over as president. There would still be a Republican in the oval office. And it wouldn't be Trump. So they had Trump in the oval office, and he was promising to pick Supreme Court justices the Republicans wanted, rubber stamp the laws Republicans wrote, and just about do anything the party asked for. But if they ever needed to take him out, they could.

The Russian probe began almost immediately after he took office. The Republicans must have realized the only way Trump's base would not be to angry about his impeachment would be if he had made deals with our enemy. But just in case, wait until after the midterm so the Republicans had a good two years to win the base back. And impeaching Trump after the midterm meant that Pence wouldn't be serving a full term, which meant he could run for President twice. The best case scenario. Two incumbent elections in a row. The possibility of holding the office for ten years in a row with the same Republican president. All they needed to do was to put up with two years of Trump.

Okay, lets suppose the Republicans are not as calculated as that. Lets say they had no idea that the Russian probe would uncover so many cans of worms. Lets say they were fine with two o terms of Trump. Lets say they had no intention of removing Trump from office. That all means diddly squat. Because if Mueller comes up with evidence Donald Trump committed a crime, then the Republicans will be the first to call for impeachment. Especially if the Blue Wave does materialize. A Blue Wave that Trump caused. They hate the guy even more than the Democrats, and would be eager for a Pence presidency.