I am quite able to accept the notion that once the House impeaches Donald Trump over abuse of power, violation of his oath, bribery, extortion and assorted other high crimes and misdemeanors that the Senate is likely to keep him in office.

Then what?

The president can campaign for re-election in 2020 as the only individual ever to seek a second term under the cloud of impeachment. How do you think that will play?

It then likely would fall on whoever runs against him to make the case that Trump encompasses, in fact, all the traits laid out in the articles of impeachment. He is ignorant of government; he is self-serving, self-aggrandizing and self-indulgent; he denigrates dedicated public servants; he is corrupt to the core.

Is that what we want in our president, in our head of state, in our commander in chief? Of course not! Then again, I don’t need to be persuaded of any of it. I have believed it since the moment the Reality TV Celebrity in Chief rode down the Trump Tower escalator and declared (a) that he would run for president and that (b) Mexicans are rapists, drug dealers and murderers.

Perhaps the speaker of the House was right all along. Trump won’t be kicked out of office by a Senate conviction because the GOP majority lacks the courage to do the right thing; so it falls on the voters to remove him on Nov. 3, 2020 when they cast their ballots for president.

The impeachment inquiry is going to lead to an impeachment. I have reversed myself on that matter. It should proceed. I have heard enough from the witnesses who have talked publicly to the House Intelligence Committee.

Donald Trump is even more unfit for the presidency than he was when he entered the 2016 campaign. He needs to be defeated. Trump needs to evicted from the White House and sent home to Mar-a-Lago, where his heart has belonged all along anyway.

I say this believing that Senate Republicans will hold firm against the tide that will impeach the president. That’s my view today.

There well might be a glimmer of hope, though, that lightning will strike and that GOP senators can be persuaded by their “bosses” at home that they need to suck it up, step up and stand for the Constitution they took an oath to protect and defend.

It’s only a glimmer but … one never knows.