Extreme narcissists exaggerate their achievements and talents, and so Trump has spent his life building up a false image of himself - not just for others, but for himself, to protect his deeply fragile ego. He lies endlessly, not just in the way sociopaths do, which is to con others, but also to delude himself.
The Framers of the Constitution expected the presidency to be occupied by special individuals, selfless people of the highest character and ability. They intended the Electoral College to be a truly deliberative body, not the largely ceremonial institution it has become today.
Voting by mail has a long, venerable tradition in this country, most notably the election of 1864, when 150,000 Union soldiers sent in ballots that helped ensure President Abraham Lincoln's reelection, the preservation of the union and the abolition of slavery. Mailed votes leave a paper trail that renders them less, not more, susceptible to fraud.
One of the bad things about bad behavior by politicians (particularly by Donald Trump, because he's president, but by others as well) is that it not only can encourage bad behavior by politicians of all ideological stripes but also can be cited to justify it.
When he ran a private company, one he owned, Trump could command all its constituent parts to do his bidding and make the rules himself. You'd think by his fourth year in the White House, he would have learned that the presidency doesn't work that way. But obviously he hasn't.
As all presidents must, Trump swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and to faithfully execute his office and the laws in accordance with the Constitution. That oath requires putting the national interests above his personal interests.
Trump took a solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. After his years in the job, he ought to know something about that document.
When Trump lied and claimed credit for 'the greatest economy in the history of our country,' even though it wasn't, and even though he inherited a strong economy, and goosed it up with trillions of dollars in debt, it didn't matter to most people.
Fiduciaries are people who hold legal obligations of trust, like a trustee of a trust. A trustee must act in the beneficiary's best interests and not his own. If the trustee fails to do that, the trustee can be removed, even if what the trustee has done is not a crime.
The electoral calendar is set in stone, by law.
There should be no schools, bridges or statues devoted to Trump. His name should live in infamy, and he should be remembered, if at all, for precisely what he was - not a president, but a blundering cheat.
Among Donald Trump's many flaws as president is one that's as fundamental as any: He simply doesn't understand his job.
The president's duty to faithfully execute his office includes not only a duty of loyalty to the nation but also a duty of care - a duty to act with reasonable diligence and upon a reasonable basis.
It's about the principles, it's about the rule of law. You don't have to stay silent when you see something that you don't like that is inconsistent of these timeless principles.
If anything has cheapened or trivialized the process by which Trump was impeached, it was House Republicans' refusal to treat the proceedings with the seriousness the Constitution demands.
Mary Trump's 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man' tells a remarkable story, the broad strokes of which many already knew. Mary Trump offers a tale of what she calls 'malignant' family dysfunction, and how it produced a malignantly dysfunctional president.
Sometimes when you're defending people, you have to admit there was something that's not quite right, and that preserves some credibility.
In civil or criminal litigation in a jury case, the only way for a defendant to avoid a trial is for a judge to rule that there was no evidence from which the jury could find for the other side.
Americans should expect far more from a president than merely that he not be provably a criminal. They should expect a president to comport himself in accordance with the high duties of his office.