Having escaped the probe of Robert Mueller and the unbearably saccharine tweeting of James Comey, Trump almost immediately tossed his presidency out of the microwave-safe dish and into a dumpster fire. He did so by withholding congressionally authorized assistance to Ukraine and planning to withhold it until that country’s leaders announced a politically expedient investigation into Trump’s political rival’s son, a plan that never came to fruition and has backfired spectacularly…

Trump brought this scandal on himself. Nothing compelled him to believe Rudy Giuliani’s theories about Ukraine. His campaign or other surrogates could have dug up and shoveled dirt on Joe Biden and his son. There is plenty to go around.

Trump arguably brought about the political conditions that have made his impeachment possible. He was unable or unwilling to pressure his party to vigorously pursue the most popular items he campaigned on in Congress. Instead they wasted his time with Obamacare repeal. (Another round of health-insurance-policy cancellations or alterations, it turns out, was electoral poison). He encouraged them to pass a politically unpopular tax cut. Mitch McConnell has done the lion’s share of work on appointing judges. But when it comes to the unique “Trumpian” contribution to American governance, the only evidence of a Trump administration’s existence is some executive orders related to the border crisis and a lot of tweets. It’s not a surprise he lost Congress.