With each new day Donald Trump makes the case stronger for his impeachment. This isn’t a close call. He is acting out in a way that can only be explained by a fearful and guilty conscience. Trump’s Twitter tantrums are getting more hostile and disconnected from reality. And his ravings serve as incitements to his glassy-eyed disciples to resort to violence.

For these reasons Trump cannot be tolerated in the White House for any longer than it takes to invoke and complete the legal and constitutional process of impeachment. He represents an imminent danger to the nation that worsens by the hour. And this threat rests on top of the blatant assault on the rule of law by a reckless and self-obsessed aspiring tyrant. Trump’s defenders keep asking what laws he has broken. So for those wingnuts in denial about Trump’s legal jeopardy, the laws he can be charged with violating right now include extortion, campaign finance, witness intimidation, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy against the United States.

As the sinkhole widens around our panicky president, he appears to be determined to use his own shovel dig ever deeper. His Twitter feed is infested with conspiracy theories, personal insults, unbridled hatred, and outright lies. But worst of all are his flagrant attempts to sow national discord and even civil war. His tweets have taken on the persona of a paranoid schizophrenic who shouts gibberish at passing cars. For instance:

• Trump tweeted that “I want [House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam] Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.”
• Trump asked “Was this person [the whistleblower or his source] SPYING on the U.S. President?”
• Trump alleged that Democrats “are lying & cheating like never before in our Country’s history in order to destabilize the United States of America.”
• Trump asserted that “the Democrats don’t care if they burn down and destroy this nation.”
• Trump quoted a “pastor” who predicted that impeachment will “cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.”
• Trump charged that he’s “looking for Corruption and … By the way, the Bidens were corrupt!”
• Trump repeated the absurdity that “Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine … Arrest for Treason?”

These utterly unhinged outbursts reveal Trump’s severe mental infirmity and unfitness for office. There is simply no rational justification for charging a Democratic congressman with treason, a crime punishable by death. Nor is it rational to claim that Democrats want to “destabilize” and “destroy” the nation. And aligning himself with the opinion that the lawful process of investigating the President is a valid basis for civil war is just plain insane.

However, Trump’s confession that he did indeed illegally solicit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for dirt on Joe Biden was a bit of a surprise. The surprise isn’t that Trump did it, just that he admitted it. And notice that Trump, who often whines about due process for himself, isn’t giving it to Biden who he flatly says – with zero evidence – is corrupt.

Trump’s manic hysteria is producing some of his most dishonest statements to date. And for someone who has been documented as telling over 12,000 lies, that’s saying something. Among his recent falsehoods are that Rep. Schiff purposefully misquoted Trump. In fact, Schiff prefaced a brief portion of his opening statement at a congressional hearing by stating explicitly that he was creatively paraphrasing Trump. There was no effort to mislead anyone.

Trump has also been tweeting that the whistleblower is fake. But he’s ignoring the fact that the whistleblower’s complaint matches perfectly Trump’s own memo summarizing his phone call with Zelensky. And Trump keeps citing Zelensky as saying that there wasn’t any pressure put on him to dig up dirt on Biden. But you don’t ask the hostage if his captor is putting pressure on him. What was Zelensky supposed to say? He obviously feared losing the foreign aid that Trump was withholding from him.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

This combination of brazen illegality and psychotic breakdown is far more than enough reason to oust Trump from office. And the urgency increases as his mental meltdown accelerates into orbit. Trump can still do an enormous amount of damage to this country and its international reputation. Yes, even more than he’s already done. And we as a nation must not allow that.