Tyrants very rarely leave power voluntarily. In almost every case they've committed so many crimes in the process of acquiring and holding power, and exploiting that power to enrich themselves, their friends and allies, that they know if they step down they will be facing, at the very least, a long stretch in prison.

This is why it's so vital that Donald Trump be removed from power immediately. Be it through the 25th Amendment or immediate articles of impeachment and a vote in the Senate, it must be done.

A dear friend of mine, Armin Lehmann, was the 16-year-old courier who brought Adolf Hitler the news that the war was totally lost, and thus was in the Führerbunker when Hitler committed suicide. Armin told me how a few weeks earlier, on March 19, 1945, Hitler had ordered the remnants of the German Air Force and tank crews to bomb Berlin and reduce other German cities to rubble. Germans still refer to it as his Nero Decree.

Hitler was not unique. This is how tyrants often go down. Like Jim Jones, they destroy everything in sight and kill as many people as they can on their way out. In his last days Robert Mugabe ordered 20,000 people murdered in a state that hadn't voted for him. The last days of a tyrant's reign are the most critically dangerous moments for the survival of a nation.

Trump still has control of the nuclear codes, and Congress has given presidents so much power to initiate foreign “police actions" and wars, particularly since 9/11, that his provoking World War III to try to stay in power, or simply to punish the human race, is not inconceivable.

Which is why the House of Representatives must today pass Articles of Impeachment against Trump, and the Senate must hold an immediate vote to remove him from office. Parallel to that, Vice President Pence must invoke the 25th Amendment and pull the Cabinet together to temporarily remove Trump from power and perhaps even institutionalize him until this moment of crisis has passed.

Originally posted on Medium.com.

-Thom