There's Reason To Predict A Trump Impeachment

With a fairly chaotic start to his first term, many Americans are wondering just how long Donald Trump will last in office — and if impeachment may already be on table. But for Allan Lichtman, a professor at American University who has managed to accurately predict every presidential election of the last 30-plus years, it's not a matter of if, but when impeachment proceedings go down. He's certain enough of this outcome that's he's writing a book all about how, when, and why POTUS 45 will be impeached.

In The Case for Impeachment (due to be released April 18), Lichtman plans to explore the different ways our current president could face impeachment — whether it's due to his campaign's alleged connections with Russia, his countless remaining ties to his private businesses, or maybe something else. Lichtman has had more than enough time to think these scenarios over, considering he predicted Trump's victory (mostly, he said, the tight race was due to voters' views of Obama's second term) and almost immediately predicted that he'd eventually get into some trouble or, most likely, lose favor with conservatives — like, just days after the election he was already making this call about the president's future.

Though this prediction wasn't made through the same systems — using 13 historical precedents/factors that he calls "keys" — as his election predictions, Lichtman said in an interview with The Washington Post back in November 2016 that his gut told him that Trump's uncontrollable nature would eventually catch up with him. And paired with a financial or national security-related gaffe, it could eventually lose him some Republican friends who might prefer a more traditional conservative executive branch in the mold of Vice President Mike Pence or Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

This one is not based on a system; it's just my gut. They don't want Trump as president, because they can't control him. He's unpredictable. They'd love to have Pence — an absolutely down-the-line, conservative, controllable Republican. And I'm quite certain Trump will give someone grounds for impeachment, either by doing something that endangers national security or because it helps his pocketbook.

While it's still incredibly early in this (albeit unprecedentedly scandal-ridden) presidency, Lichtman's track record with and breadth of knowledge about American politics make it seem possible that Trump's own notorious streak of deftly avoiding other sticky accusations might finally come to an end.