President Donald J. Trump was Impeached Today On Charges of High Treason

April 20th, 2025

This is an excerpt from a book I am writing. Please subscribe, I plan to write daily. And any feedback you have is much appreciated. Writing in this “live” format with instant feedback gives me much more motivation to maintain the practice. I really appreciate your participation in the creation of this book.

“Do they have McDonald’s in Moscow?” Quote attributed to president Donald J. Trump as he sat in the presidential bunker, watching drone feeds showing millions of Americans marching in protest of his tyrannical regime all across the United States.

Later that year then president Trump would become the first sitting US president to be impeached and charged with high treason. He would be found guilty and sentenced along with members of his cabinet, dozens of his billionaire backers, members of congress, the senate, the supreme court, federal courts, and his supporters in state and local governments who enabled him to flaunt the rule of law and the constitution.

This marked the beginning of a new era of politics for the United States. The popular uprising which ousted the president demanded a new political coalition that fought for the rights of everyday people. The events of the 2nd Trump presidency ignighted a engagement and interest in politics not seen since the founding of the country. This led to reform efforts focused around human rights, labor rights, environmental protections, combating climate change, and taxing and curbing the power of the ultra-wealthy. This effort is still on-going but at the time of publication 273 billionaires and executives of major corporations have been charged with treason, tax evasion, securities fraud, and other serious charges. Most are in custody awaiting trial while others have fled the country and are living in exile in non-extradition nations. President Ocasio-Cortez has promised to use the full might of the US military to capture and bring to justice every one of these criminals for their crimes against the people of the United States and their crimes against humanity. President Bukele and Netanyahu have both been in hiding since the impeachment of President Trump.

The impeachment and trial of president Trump also lead to a grass-roots movement to root out far-right ultranationalist white supremacy movements within the United States. The nation, having been pushed to the brink of civil war after the violent uprising of white-supremacy militias in the last days of the Trump presidency, acted decisively to remove this hateful ideology from its culture. Those involved in the violence were identified largely through social media posts uploaded by themselves. Treason, murder, assault and battery, and domestic terrorism were a few of the charges laid upon thousands of militia members. Members not directly involved in the violence were charged with criminal conspiracy and gang laws. The public outcry also forced members not imprisoned to go into hiding, with many of them fleeing to El Salvador, Russia, and Argentina.

-Reuters, Nov 5th, 2025.

This is the future that I visualize in my daily meditations. When I do these visualizations I have a desire to see a violent end for these traitors. But each time that urge arises I notice that it brings with it hate. This is such a deeply negative emotion. So instead of filling my heart with hate at the thought of these criminals meeting their just end, I instead see them sitting in prison, broken, sad, and alone. Stripped of their power, stripped of everything that they have which gave them comfort and meaning in life. I see trump as an old, broken man, looking out through the small window of his cell, isolated from other prisoners for his own protection.

This replaces my feelings of hate with pity, sadness, and empathy. I don’t agree with trump’s actions and I don’t condone them. But I can understand them. It seems to me that he is a deeply insecure man who never felt like he’s done “enough.” Likely stemming from his fractured relationship with his father. I can understand how a deeply insecure, bitter, and frustrated man would lash out and act in the way that he does.

In Too Much and Never Enough, Mary Trump (55) describes her uncle as a bully and narcissist who learned to lie to ensure that his father, Fred Trump, did not treat him with the scorn the New York builder laid on his eldest son, Freddie.

In the memoir, to be published later this month, Mr Trump’s niece says his long history of lying has become a more serious problem now that he is having to deal with crises, including the coronavirus pandemic. She says he is not equipped to handle it.

“His ability to control unfavourable situations by lying, spinning and obfuscating has diminished to the point of impotence in the midst of the tragedies we are currently facing,” Ms Trump writes in the book.

Similarly I can understand why Elon Musk acts the way he does. He has become the richest man in the world in the futile effort to find peace and happiness from external sources. How disappointing and deeply existential his experience must be. Imagine, you are literally the richest man in the world. You have had 14 children with four different women. Fulfilling your perverse fantasies you had while you were a nerdy incel building PayPal. You can buy elections and presidents and even entire nations. But you’re still not happy. You’re still not at peace.

You realize that no one in your life truly cares about you. You realize that every single sycophant that surrounds you would disappear if you lost your money. And you feel the stress and weight of that possibility daily as you watch the value of your stocks tumble. So you medicate yourself with ketamine. You keep trying. You think maybe if you can control the US government and show people how smart you are then you’ll find true happiness and true love and true adoration.

You’re crushed when the populace turns on you.

I can understand where he’s coming from. I went down a similar path in my early life. I struggled with dating and relationships and didn’t have a real relationship until my mid 20s. In my teenage years every single day I thought to myself “if only I can get a girlfriend then I’ll be happy.” Similarly I thought once I get my degree and a good job I’ll be happy. When I joined the Army I was hopeful that facing this difficult challenge would make me respected, confident, and happy.

CrossFit Audacity

I opened a CrossFit gym in 2015 when I was 28. I was soo ecstatic when it opened. I thought, alright this is it, I’ve finally become a success! I’ll make a bunch of money. That will make me attractive to women and I’ll have good relationships. I’ll be able to buy a nice house and drive a nice car. I’ll be able to travel wherever I want to go. And THEN I’ll be happy.

The guy standing next to me is pastor Dyer. He was a member of my gym. He is a Trump supporter and takes offense when I call Trumpers traitors on Facebook.

My gym failed. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. The failure of my gym was, and still is the most humbling experience of my life. Prior to this I thought I was SO smart and more capable than basically anyone else on Earth. I was quickly promoted in the Army and earned my EIB. I got to attend Air Assault and Combatives courses(schools that only a few people in my unit got to attend) because my command liked me. I made Sergeant after four years and was put in charge of a fireteam. I regularly maxed out my PT test. My evaluations all read “promote ahead of peers.”

In 2012 I graduated from the University of Missouri with a master’s in accounting, debt free and with money in the bank thanks to the Army. I’d had an accounting internship and really didn’t like the work so I wasn’t sure what to do with my life. That summer I decided to just stop worrying about the future and enjoy my summer.

So I played Diablo 3 sixteen hours a day. What, how do you like to enjoy your summers? I leveled up one of the first level 60 monks in the game and made a few YouTube videos. My first video got a million views and earned me $2,000 in a month. “Holy shit, you can actually make money from the internet.” That was still a novel concept back in 2012.

That was how my YouTube channel, The Healthy Gamer, was born. I would go on to make hundreds of videos talking about gaming, health, fitness, and nutrition. Combining my passion for gaming with my passion for health and fitness. Even back then I had a vision for inspiring and motivating others to follow and fulfill their dreams but I knew I was lacking in the knowledge and experience to truly guide my audience.

Still, I tried. The old mantra from the myriad of self-help and business books I read was “fake it til you make it.” Terrible advice. You should learn skills and gain experience and THEN you will make it. Any house built on a foundation of lies will never stand long-term.

I found moderate success with YouTube but could never stick to it. I would be hit with a wave of crippling depression and stop everything. Then I’d try to start-up again the next year. I lived like this from 2012 to 2015 sometimes working odd jobs if I needed money. I was always on the very edge of the financial abyss, never more than $2-3,000 in my bank account. Always stressed and not knowing how I’d make enough money to pay rent, but still I somehow always managed to get by.

This cycle continued until in a burst of mania during the winter of 2014 I decided to open my gym. My vision was to have a gym that could inspire others to achieve their highest potential. I wanted to share my story of how I’d gone from a depressed and lonely teenager to “the successful 100% happy 28 year old standing before you today!” Hah! I was so foolish and so full of myself. I had no idea how far I still had to travel or how much work still needed to be done before I could actually consider myself fulfilled or find true happiness.

I worked in a fever pitch that winter. I borrowed money from my relatives. I found and signed a commercial lease on a 2,500sq ft facility. I ordered $20,000 worth of equipment. I attended a three-day seminar, paid $1,000, and was given a certificate from CrossFit that told me I was now a “CrossFit Level 1 Certified Trainer.” I was now qualified to train people in dangerous and highly skilled movements, which involved throwing hundreds of pounds of iron around. I paid an additional $3,000 for a CrossFit franchise - the most difficult part wasn’t proving my ability to run a business or coach clients safely. It was finding a name that wasn’t already taken. I finally settled on CrossFit Audacity. Because I wanted a gym that would give people the audacity to live the life of their dreams.

I bought $1,500 worth of horse-stall mats from Tractor supply. They were on-sale for 50% off for Easter for some reason. At the end of a drill weekend I had a few soldiers from my unit join me to help unload them in the gym and then I bought them pizza. “Wow, look at me, I’m such a smart businessman, getting free labor from my soldiers! And the pizza can be written off as a business expense!” The thoughts that go through the mind of a manic 28 year old.

My gym officially opened in May. Three girls from the leasing office wanted to do private training at 5:30am. “Great, I can do that!” Then I taught the 6:30am group class. I taught the 9am group class. A group from a local mortgage company wanted to do private training at noon. “Yes! I can do that! But I’ll have to squeeze you in at 1pm, because we have a noon group class.” I did my own workout in the afternoon and I will say I was in the best shape of my life then. I could do 12 strict ring muscle-ups. I could deadlift 450 pounds. And I could power-clean 245 pounds. I still hated running and died every-time trying to run a 13 minute two mile. I had a class at 5pm and another at 6pm. On Tuesdays and Saturdays I had a free class open to anyone who wanted to try CrossFit at 7pm. Then I’d spend half an hour cleaning up, eat dinner, and pass out only to wake up at 5am the next day. The gym was closed on Sunday and I spent 3 hours deep cleaning the mats with a wet vacuum.

This relentless schedule continued for three months. I was arrogant and naive to the realities of owning a small business and thought I could do everything myself, and more importantly that I had to do everything myself. I didn’t trust anyone else to coach a class because I thought I was the best coach. I was too cheap to hire anyone to clean the gym. I did all my own marketing because I’ve built a big YouTube channel, so of course I know more about marketing than any marketing company.

My caffeine consumption went from one cup of coffee in the morning to 8 cups throughout the day. I didn’t have time to be tired. I didn’t have time to rest. I even missed my two week annual training for the Army that year.

By August I was bone-weary and burnt out completely. That was when I started contemplating suicide. I had a lease that said I needed to pay $4,000/month for the next 4 years. I had enough members to cover that payment but not much else. My perspective shrank with my deepening depression. I couldn’t see a positive future. My hopes for everything the gym would become were completely shattered. All I could think about was that $4,000/month rent payment. Why had I signed such an expensive lease in such a prime retail location? Why hadn’t I signed a lease in a warehouse that would have been a fraction of the cost? Why hadn’t I planned better to have trainers that could take on some of my workload?

I started sleeping through my alarm in exhaustion. I can’t describe how awful the feeling is to wake up to a member’s repeated calls at 5:30am wondering why you’re not there opening the gym. I can still feel it in the pit of my stomach as I write this. I just felt so tired and so defeated.

I knew I didn’t have the energy to continue on with the gym and do the work required to grow it into something sustainable. My entire world became this $4,000/month rent. It was a noose around my neck. A heavy block of concrete dragging me down into a dark lake of despair. My future is over. I’ve ruined my life. I will never financially recover from this.

I’m going to have to leave town. How can I ever show my face around here again after such a public failure?

The suicidal ideation became worse. If I kill myself these problems will disappear. I’ll be free. I remember having a call with my mom. She said that I can’t just quit the gym, I have too much invested. I told her, “if I don’t quit I’m going to kill myself. I can’t do this anymore.”

It just happened that some friends wanted to open a CrossFit gym of their own. We talked and settled on them taking over my gym. I basically gave the gym to them and lost all the time and money I’d invested in. In retrospect I could have sold the gym at a healthy profit as it was doing good. I had over 50 members paying $110/month by the time I sold it. But my burnout and depression had put me in such a deep hole that I only thought of removing the weight of that lease from my neck. I was terrified that they’d back out of the deal and I’d be stuck with the lease, so I gave them a really great deal. My accountant even commented on how great of a deal they got when she did my taxes later that year.

My landlord made me pay $8,000 to get out of my lease. He made up some BS reasons to keep my entire $8,000 deposit even though I had found new owners to take over my lease. I didn’t fight it. I should have. He also forced me to buy a giant neon sign from his buddy’s sign business. He said all businesses there had to have a big sign. It didn’t even arrive until after I’d sold the gym and cost another $5,000. For years after I harbored fantasies of finding him on the street and doing violence to him. I felt he’d taken advantage of my vulnerable mental state and my lack of experience in business.

This failure truly devastated me. It punctured my inflated ego and shattered the image of this super smart, successful guy I’d built up. I truly felt broken. I didn’t fully regain my confidence and self-esteem until around 2020 after I successfully completed a season with the Sawtooth Hotshots fighting wildfires.

I’m so thankful for that failure and that shattering of my ego. If I’d succeeded in this venture I’d probably still be living in Missouri running that thing. I certainly wouldn’t have gone on to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail in 2016 or have all of the adventures that grew out of that hike. I am so glad that I’m not that same conceited and arrogant kid.

That failure also created the cracks in my political belief system which would eventually break me out of my libertarian/conservative leanings. It showed me that shit happens in life and we aren’t always in control of our destiny. Sometimes people work hard and do everything right and still need help, and that it’s okay to take and receive help. Just three years after this experience I’d work for the Montana Conservation Corps and signed up for food stamps because our weekly stipend of $240 wasn’t enough to live on. My pride would have never allowed me to take government assistance without my earlier experience of failure.

I am so grateful for this experience of failure because it taught me that nothing external to myself will ever bring me the peace and happiness that I seek. After clawing myself out of the deepest depression I’d experienced to date which lasted six months I asked myself “what would I do if I had made a bunch of money and had all the resources in the world?” The answer was “I’d travel the world and make documentaries about my travels.” I grew up watching Anthony Bourdaine’s travel cooking shows and always dreamed of making similar shows like him but with more of a focus on spirituality and difficult fitness challenges.

In the summer of 2016 I set off to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail and walk from Georgia to Maine with my Canon rebel and document the journey. I never ended up producing the documentary I wanted or even shooting all that much video but this ignited my thirst for adventure which would propel me into a completely new lifestyle.

I’ll write more on my thru-hiking adventures in later chapters. I want to focus on the topic of the danger of actually achieving our dreams. I had high hopes when I set off on the Appalachian Trail. If I could walk 2,189 miles from Georgia to Maine THEN I could do anything in life and therefore finally be happy and be OK.

Can you guess what’s coming next? I finished my AT thru-hike after six and a half months. I walked with broken feet and lyme disease toward the end. But I finished that damn hike. There was not one doubt in my mind that I would finish the hike. Instead of feeling happy and feeling okay at the end I felt hollow, empty, and slipped into a depression even deeper than when I’d failed with the gym. I think now that it’s actually better to not achieve your dreams. Because if you don’t achieve them at least you can cling onto the illusion and the hope that ONE DAY life will be better. Once you achieve your dreams you lose that comforting blanket of hope and illusion.

I spent the next year doing nothing but playing World of Warcraft in order to manage my depression. I’m honestly not sure how I even managed to support myself but I still came up with rent and enough money to buy groceries each month with what little I earned from my online endeavors. What finally pulled me out was attending my first 10 day Vipassana silent meditation course.

At the conclusion of this 10 day silent meditation course I realized that THIS was what I’d been searching for my entire life. This meditation practice of going inward and rewiring our habitual reactions to the world was what would actually bring me peace and happiness in this moment. That no amount of external success or achievement would ever bring me the peace and happiness that I sought. I realized that there was nothing I needed to strive for in this life. That I would actually reach my goals of being OK, being happy, and being at peace by letting go of the external world and the pressures for success that came along with it and just sit with my thoughts and emotions in silent meditation.

I left that retreat riding a real high and of course I was disappointed again as my life wasn’t immediately fixed as I’d mistakenly believed. Of course I came back to earth after that high. But there was one crucial difference this time. I had learned the critical lessons required to skillfully manage my thoughts and emotions. I still slipped into a depressive episode that winter but it didn’t come with the same sharp edges.

I had learned the lesson of the impermanent nature of all phenomena and knew that this depression would pass. I had learned to not add to my suffering by wishing for reality to be different than it was so I was able to just sit with my depression and allow myself the grace to sleep and rest and to not be productive. I had learned that happiness and peace could only be obtained from inner work so it didn’t bother me as much that I wasn’t able to get capitalistic work done. I had learned the critical skill to start easing the suffering of my life.

I can honestly say that each year I’ve suffered less and been more happy and been more okay since attending that first retreat in the winter of 2017. The practice has been so beneficial and so important in my life that I’ve sat or served a dozen 10 day retreats since then.

Before attending the retreat my life was spiraling out of control. I felt like I was losing my grip and honestly didn’t see myself living much beyond my 30s. In some ways I wished for death. I had so much pain and suffering in my day to day that I fantasized about societal collapse and the apocalypse. I wanted the outside world to reflect my ugly, scarred, and broken inner landscape.

So in that way I can relate to trump and Musk. They played out the game of chasing material success and worldly power to the very end. And they have discovered that it’s all hollow. That it’s all meaningless. That they are still not okay and not happy. And what a deeply existential and disturbing place that must be to no longer have any illusions left to cling to. You’ve made it to the top. You’re the president. You’re the richest man in the world. And still you’re not ok.

They are simply acting out their inner ugliness onto the external world now. I like to visualize them sitting in prison being taught Vipassana meditation. This is the outcome I would like. Not a violent one. But one where they can learn to correct their mistaken worldview. There’s an interesting documentary called Doing Time, Doing Vipassana where Goenka Ji teaches Vipassana to a group of inmates in India and shows the transformation that these prisoners go through. It’s very interesting and watching it fills me with hope for the future. You can find it on YouTube.

I felt that way after finishing my first hike of the Appalachian Trail. I’d completed something that I didn’t even think was possible. I’d walked across the damn east coast, from Georgia to Maine! And still I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t happy. None of my problems were solved. What now?

I am so deeply grateful for finding the teachings of Vipassana from S.N. Goenka. If these words speak to you I recommend you find a retreat on www.dhamma.org. There are centers around the US and around the world and they’re all donation based. There is never a charge to attend and never any expectation for you to donate at the end. It will be the most beneficial ten days you will spend anywhere in your life.

I still contend that my first 10 day retreat was more beneficial to me than the entire 6.5 months I spent hiking the Appalachian Trail for the first time. It’s not hyperbole to say that Vipassana saved my life, and the practice might just save the world if more people practiced.