From John Oliver: Stupid Watergate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)



Thoughts:
1) Oh, hey, Justin Amash (someone I went to high school with) is prominently featured on Last Week Tonight.  
2) I'm sure you've been having the same discussions at work that I have.  Some people think there's no point in impeaching Donald Trump, because Pence and Paul Ryan are just as bad.
But put me in team "Pence is not as bad as Trump."
It's true that the modern Republican Party is against everything that we liberals stand for.  So no matter which Republican is president, we liberals are going to have to stomach a lot of things we don't like.  But that's democracy for you.  We lost the election, we have to suck it up.  (And  then in the long term, we have to work hard to change attitudes in this country.)
Trump, however, is uniquely unfit for the Presidency.
In an ideal world, impeachment proceedings would begin immediately.  Trump is damaging the country.
3) However, that being said, John Oliver makes a good case that Donald Trump won't be impeached.  I mean, sure, he deserves to be impeached.  But deserves got nothing to do with it.  In reality, the Republicans control both houses of congress, and so Trump probably won't be impeached.

Which is true, but which is also incredibly depressing.
It means that the idealized version of American democracy that we learned in 8th grade civics class is dead.

Think back to your 8th grade civics class.  If you had asked the teacher, "But what kind of things could a President be impeached for?", Donald Trump would be a textbook example of all the things that should get a President impeached.
But the reality is, as long as the President's party controls the congress, the President can be as corrupt as he wants, and he will never get impeached.

We are witnessing unprecedented levels of corruption coming out of the White House, and it looks like  there will be no repercussions for this.

This is bad not just for now, but for the future of our country.  Even after Trump leaves office, it will be hard to reset and go back to politics as normal after this.  There is a danger that this level of corruption will just become accepted as the norm.