Anyone who knows me knows I oppose almost everything President Trump stands for, including his conduct as President of the United States as well as much of his foreign and domestic policy. However, since that tragic day in November 2016 when he was elected and pundits have discussed the possibility of a Trump impeachment and removal from office, I have pondered if that would really be better for the country. As time has passed, a few things have happened. His leadership has gotten far worse, his policies have gotten even more extreme, and his grip on the Republican Party has slowly begun to loosen.

When President Trump took office on January 20, 2017, his White House was full-ish. There were people within the White House who had been there before, who knew how the government worked, and who were executing a strategy. Sean Spicer’s very first White House briefing, although tragic, was at least a White House Briefing. John Kelly and Jim Mattis, along with others, were there to serve the country. I believe this was the time the Trump Administration was most dangerous. During the first few months, the White House was staffed with personnel who could make a Muslim Ban happen. The people working for the President at that time were experienced, so they were ready to execute whatever crazy order the President gave them. White House senior staff would keep the President from doing anything that they saw as completely endangering the country. Don’t get me wrong, The White House was a mad one at this point, but it was filled with brains who could both save the President from political suicide and implement his most disgusting policies.

At this point, there are few people who work in the White House. There are no longer press briefings unless something wacky happens, as it did on October 17 when the White House Chief of Staff spontaneously briefed the press and admitted to the charge that spurred the impeachment inquiry. As this instance shows, the people behind the President are no longer working to protect him from going entirely off the rails. The people behind him now are Rudy Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney. Many are blaming them for coming up with the entire plot to ask Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden in exchange for foreign aid. 

The situation with Ukraine is only one of the crazy things the President has done of late. He recently decided to pull all American forces out of Syria, abandoning the Kurds and leaving ISIS with territory to gain. At home, President Trump has decided to demonize homelessness and privatize healthcare for the Department of Veterans Affairs. On a whim a few times a week, President Trump will fire someone on Twitter or announce a crazy policy that few people in the country, let alone the government, take seriously. The President has gotten more and more radical and the result has been his own loss of power.

At the beginning of his Presidency, Trump had complete Republican support. It took a while for that to change and the needle has not moved dramatically, but following the reports of the Ukraine scandal and the new strategy in Syria, more Republicans than ever are willing to criticize the President. Two-thirds of House Republicans voted to denounce the President’s recent policy shift in Syria as public support for impeachment has risen to over 50 percent according to FiveThirtyEight.

So why is all of this relevant? The future of the country is at stake. And however counterintuitive it may seem, I think for all the reasons I have detailed above the best thing for America today is for President Trump to not be removed from office. His White House is so weak, they can barely get anything done. As he continues to lose the support of his party, implementing whatever agenda comes to the top of his head each morning will only get more difficult.

A President Pence would be far more dangerous. Vice President Pence is more radical than Trump on many domestic issues, such as women’s and LGBTQ rights. Not only is he more radical, he actually knows how the government works and could be extremely effective at instituting dangerous policies across the country that would turn back the clock to far darker days. A President Pence could reunify the Republican party under a more refined message that would last longer than the current, narrow message of Trump. 

The best way for the country to turn is to elect a new President in November 2020. The worst way for our country to turn would be to remove President Trump and make the White House a functioning place, working with a clear strategy to set back the country decades, and people who can execute that strategy.