Well, of something, the answer is almost certainly yes. However, if we confine ourselves to the question of his second impeachment, and whether the Senate will find him guilty, that is far from certain.

It is pretty clear the Republican leadership would give a great deal to be rid of ex-President Trump. He has shifted the strategy of the party to focus on a nationalist, nativist, and white supremacist base that may be difficult to transform into a reliable majority vote even with the various Republican biases of the existing system. In the immediate aftermath of 6 January sentiment was running high and a strong impetus toward impeachment ran through both parties.

As time has gone by, however, a very loud cohort of the Trump base have started threatening to “primary”, if not hang, anyone who fails to support the ex-president 100%. Mitch McConnell quickly jumped back into line as some of the more extreme Republican members of the House and Senate started to compete to outshine others in their loyalty to “Trumpism”. People like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley, all seem to have their eyes set on 2024 and the 74m Trump voters they think will propel them to personal victory.

From a position of some optimism after 6 January, the brave talk of some Republican Congress men and women started to evaporate and conviction looked less and less likely.

However, this week there has been some great news. The ex-president is taking control of his own defence. The benefits of this were immediately apparent when Trump fired the lead of his legal team, a conservative and highly competent defence attorney called Butch Bowers. This resulted in a number of other lawyers in the team leaving, fired or resigned not clear.

Being fired by Trump as a lawyer is probably seen as a mixed blessing as you will not have to work with someone who is certain they know the law better than you and almost as certain is going to cut you on the fees. He is the kind of client you want a weekly fee payment with, if not daily.

Apparently, the Republican leadership are trying to convince the ex-president the strategy for impeachment should simply be that it is unconstitutional with him having left office. Trump, however, wants to rehash his bogus claims about a robbed election. The latter would certainly up the odds of him being convicted and the only thing that could make it certain is if he agreed to be a witness in his in own defence. If there was ever a need to claim the 5th Amendment, however, this would be it.

My heart would like a guilty verdict but my head thinks the republicans are still fixated on the Trump base which they think is transferable and manageable. I suspect they are wrong on both counts.

If I were one of the sensible Republican Senators I would condemn the whole trial as a sham and refuse to attend on the grounds that it would provide a spurious legitimacy to the whole business.

Obviously, I would be disappointed in the result if enough of my colleagues thought the same and thereby opened the way to a two thirds majority of those in attendance finding the ex-president guilty. Further, I would rail on Fox news about the outrageous injustice of the subsequent decision to ban Mr Trump from ever holding office again.

I would then go home and breathe an enormous sigh of relief before I got on with the job or trying to rebuild a credible Republican party committed to democratic values.