Should Donald Trump be impeached? Be careful what you wish for.

Do you really want President Mike Pence?

I suspect that setting foot in the White House these days is like stepping into a house that has suffered 90 years of termite damage, while the termites are still chomping away.

Donald Trump may have deflected attention away from himself for a day or two by appointing Christopher Wray the next FBI chief, but that’s short term stuff. The entire Trump White House operation is not only in disarray, but swaying, shaking, rattling, and collapsing on itself faster than a black hole can swallow up a dung beetle.

We have clear violations of the Foreign Emoluments clause of the Constitution,  as well as possible vulnerability to Russian blackmail mixed with nepotism, and the appearance of impropriety mixed with foreign skulduggery so strong that it assaults not only the eyes but the nostrils

Many Americans rightfully also smell Trump blood in the water. Some of my fellow Progressives, as well as other varieties of Democrats, are openly talking about impeachment.

I wish they’d shut up.

Yes, it’s possible that in the near future, disgust with Donald Trump will become so ubiquitous that even many Republicans will turn against him. It’s possible he can be impeached, if not now, then at least after the next Congressional elections, if Democrats gain, and Republicans lose enough election seats.

But then what will we get in Donald Trump’s place? You could not buy a better life insurance policy than Donald Trump gave himself when he named Mike Pence as his running mate. Pence would bring you  most of Trump’s regressive domestic policies, but without the incompetence that makes it so difficult for Trump to implement them. And if we somehow get rid of Mike Pence?

Then you get Paul Ryan, he of mysto-magic national budget plans intended to relieve the poor of their Social Security, Medicare and Obama care, while using the money taken from the poor to enrich the plumpest of America's fat cats.

Here's a handy rule to live by: do not remove an incompetent President with regressive instincts if he will be replaced by a competent President with similarly regressive instincts. Or to paraphrase Napoleon Bonapart, never interrupt the enemy when he is drowning in mistakes while trying to swim still further toward the deep end.

Instead, what sane Americans should be working for is a Democratic Congress and Senate that will hobble the president, passing progressive legislation, overriding his vetoes, vetoing his un-progressive nominees to the courts and elsewhere.

Impeachment is dangerous. Do not impeach Trump. Don’t put him in prison, as delicious as you might find that thought. Place him under White House arrest instead, by handicapping what little ability he has to function. And there let him fester and tweet his own head off until the next presidential election.