Impeachment — and then the rough beast

Again and again, this Presidency presents the question of what constitutes a “corrupt state of mind” in that mindless and “foul mash of mendacity and paranoia” (Frank Bruni) who sits, God help us, in the Oval Office. His most outrageous acts are dismissed as “just Trump being Trump,” a patent tautology akin to an insanity defense.

That’s why the 25th Amendment path to removal has always struck me as more appropriate than impeachment, but if we can accept that impeachment is “political” and prophylactic, and not punishment per se, I can live with it.

But I don’t think for a moment that a country that could elect Donald Trump won’t have something to say about it in the (unlikely) event that Trump is removed. What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?