(Graphic: Brian Covert / Photo: Getty Images)

That boy is going down, I predicted early on in the fake presidency of Donald J. Trump. And oftentimes since then, I have repeated it like a mantra: FPOTUS is going down one way or another, whether it be through legal removal or, God forbid, some other unsavory means like assassination. But whichever way you look at it, I maintained, Trump is going down and out of the White House in Washington DC.

Now, it seems, my prediction is coming true. The impeachment inquiry currently being conducted by the United States House of Representatives, under the leadership of members of the Democratic Party, is making headway on gathering strong evidence of Trump’s improprieties to be presented to the other body of the U.S. Congress, the Senate, in the near future. Whether the Republican Party-dominated Senate will then have the guts to actually impeach/indict one of their own remains to be seen. But at least where the Democrat-led House investigation is concerned, this ongoing case against Trump is a perfect slam dunk.

Or is it?

For those of us who have some memory of the past and who know our U.S. history (not a strong character trait of most American people, unfortunately), there is a feeling of dread accompanying our high expectations of Trump’s impending impeachment: How are the Democrats going to screw up this one? How and when are they going to drop the ball, trip over themselves, give up halfway through or otherwise bypass yet another good chance to clean up the political rot in their beloved USA? After all, we’ve been down this same road many times in the past and have witnessed a number of cases of the Democrats managing to lose the lead when success seemed all but certain, when the goal was right within a hand’s reach.

What do I mean by the Democrats screwing up so much when it comes to confronting corruption and changing the system? Let me count the ways….

• Iran-Contra scandal (1985-87) — An American president doing shady things with a foreign government to intentionally alter the course of a U.S. domestic presidential election: Hmmm, where have we heard this one before? Long before the Trump and Ukraine scandal, there was Ronald Reagan and Iran and Nicaragua — and the successful tilting of a U.S. presidential election in favor of the Republican candidate, Reagan, over Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter. Somehow the really bad guys involved in this shady operation on the Reagan side, which was off the official books, got away with a slap on the hand, minor time in jail or even pardons for their troubles. The Democrats never did dig all the way to the very bottom of the muck that was the Iran-contra scandal, a serious crime of state that was even linked to international drug trafficking on the part of a CIA-sponsored secret army in Nicaragua, the contras.

• Election 2000 — Remember the “hanging chads” and that whole ballot-counting business? It was Al Gore of Tennessee versus George W. Bush of Texas, and it all came down to a few counties in Florida to decide the election…after the voter rolls had been scrubbed squeaky-clean of persons of color, of course. Before the ballot counting could finish, Al Gore, the vice president under Bill Clinton, threw up his hands and conceded defeat in the most memorable concession speech of all time: “Ahh ekksayapt eyit”. (Translation from Tennessean American English into regular English: “I accept it”.) And accept defeat he did, with Gore quitting before all the votes could be counted. Later, an investigation by the Associated Press newswire service found that if Gore had stuck to his guns all the way through and demanded a full recount no matter how long it took, he probably would have won the 2000 presidential election. Now, Gore spends his time fighting global climate change, a much safer battle than fighting a fraudulent U.S. presidential election.

• “War on terrorism” (2001- ) — Once the 2000 U.S. presidential election was safely stolen and in the bag, the incoming administration of president George W. Bush, we now know, proceeded to make plans to invade Iraq, one of the most oil-rich nations on the planet, by hook or by crook. But first came the September 11 attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan, which had nothing to do with the accused evildoer Osama bin Laden. Only one single member of the United States Congress, Barbara Lee of California (a Democrat), voted against the authorization of use of military force by the U.S. government following the September 11, 2001 attacks. All the rest of her cowardly colleagues in the Democratic Party joined hands with the Republican Party to basically allow the U.S. government to get away with murder in the ensuing “war on terrorism” that followed. Eighteen years on and many lost lives and lost domestic civil liberties later, the U.S. is no closer to winning this sham of a so-called war than when it began.

• Election 2004 — The presidential election campaign of 2004 between incumbent Republican U.S. president George W. Bush and Democratic Senator John Kerry was one distinguished by voter registration problems, purges of voter lists, documented cases of voter suppression and major problems with voting machines. A recount was demanded by independent parties — not by the Democrats — in the state of Ohio, where seriously voting irregularities were found. Despite this, Kerry, like Gore before him, decided not to fight it out or pursue any further recounts and investigation of voting problems, conceding defeat the next day. Kerry reportedly did not want to squander all the election campaign money he had amassed along the way on a long, drawn-out process of investigating possible voting-related crimes. And so, Bush continued on with the fake “war on terrorism,” undaunted.

• Bush impeachment (2005-2008) — Several attempts were made in the U.S. Congress to initiate and follow through on an impeachment inquiry of George W. Bush for possible war crimes involving the false justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, among other things. But to no avail. The most important of these impeachment efforts took place in June 2008, when congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush to the U.S. House of Representatives. The House voted 251 to 166 to refer the impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee, where no further action was taken on it. It just died a quiet death there. The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic Party leadership were adamant about not wanting to pursue any further impeachment action against Bush. Fast forward from there to…

• Election 2016 — …Donald Trump being elected president over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Nancy Pelosi continued to resist calls for another Republican presidential impeachment, this time against Trump, for which she and the Democratic Party leadership received a lot of justified criticism. It took a secret CIA whistleblower’s action more than two years later in 2019 to reveal the truth about the shady things that Trump was doing in regard to Ukraine to finally get Pelosi and the Democratic Party on the impeachment bandwagon. It is looking increasingly clear, day by day, that the impeachment inquiry that is being ably led by representative Adam Schiff of California on the House Intelligence Committee will result in Trump’s impeachment and possible removal from office altogether, depending on how the Republican-dominated Senate votes in the matter afterward.

Could Trump actually be the first sitting U.S. president to be physically kicked out office altogether through the process of impeachment? It is quite possible at this stage. But anything can still happen, and that’s where the suspense and the doubts lie: Could the Democrats manage to screw this one up too, like they have so many times before? At what point will they roll over and play dead, like they have on so many other notable occasions over the years? And worse yet, when that happens, what revenge would Trump take on his enemies, both perceived and real? And what would the Democrats then do about that? Anything at all?

You will have to excuse the cynicism here, but we have seen this kind of thing happen too many times before to give the Democrats an unconditional vote of confidence just one more time. The stakes are just too high this time around for the Democrats to concede defeat and call it a day, then go on with their lives as if none of this ever happened.

But make no mistake: When I say “Democrats,” I’m really placing the blame on all of America, for it takes two parties and their millions of supporters to tango. This so-called “experiment in democracy” that is the USA will mean nothing of someone like Trump is able to treat it like his own personal prostitute or like some Wall Street corporation to be run into bankruptcy as he sees fit.

So, before you stumble and hesitate again, America, this time you really need to clean house and get the job done right of confronting corruption in this political system you call a democracy. You have seen the enemy, and he is you. Don’t flub up this one, America. Put Trump out of the White House soon and take future steps to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. It’s now or never, and you may well not get a second chance after this. And that is no lie.