While Trump’s crimes are indisputable for anyone with a functioning frontal cortex, the problem is that this isn’t the issue. The real issue is the very simple fact that there are still over forty million US voters who, because they lack the cognitive capacity to cope with real-world information and reason therefrom, will support Trump regardless of what he says and does. For these people, whom we may charitably term “intellectually unsophisticated” the arguments about Trump’s behavior are simply too complex. They read his tweets and hear his whining blustering nonsense and that’s simple. Hence they follow Trump blindly because he offers them what reality can never offer: a simple-minded monosyllabic version of reality that their minds can almost encompass.

Given this fact, no Republican politician who wishes to be re-elected is going to oppose Trump because the dull-eyed drooling howling mob would metaphorically tear them apart. The mob wants the GoP to support Trump because he’s their Messiah. He says things they can (almost) understand. No one else gives them that except their pastor/priest and they need to feel they understand something because they spend their lives feeling uncomfortable, feeling that there’s something “out there” beyond their grasp and they hate that feeling. Trump brings home their psychological bacon by delivering simplicity. And thus they adore him.

This is the fundamental electoral reality of the USA. Hence the Senate will without any question whatsoever ensure that any impeachment proceeding goes precisely nowhere. Trump will win re-election in 2020 (the Dems eternally divided, failing to understand that it’s not policy that matters any more) and his mandate will be strengthened and his errant behavior will grow catastrophically worse. But he’ll remain in office until disease carries him off, and then the mob will look eagerly for their next blustering Messiah.