I would certainly join the cheering throng if Donald Trump experienced the singular humiliation of being the first U.S. President to be impeached, convicted and expelled from office. But I’m disturbed by the glib talk about impeachment because it seems to imply that impeaching a president is as simple as blackballing a gun club member who fails to pay his NRA dues. Enthusiasm to rid ourselves of Trump is welcome, but we need a reality check on just how difficult it is to accomplish.

Impeachment is the ultimate weapon that Congress possesses to deal with a rogue president, yet it does have others that are formidable. Congress has the ability to pass legislation that limits the president’s freedom; the power of the purse, and hence the ability to refuse to fund ill-advised presidential projects; the power to investigate presidential activities and aggressively exercise oversight of them; a constitutional right to inform the public of presidential activities that are dangerous or contrary to the public welfare; a major say in who occupies judgeships, cabinet positions and agencies. It can even formally censure the president for his or her actions, which can be a powerful weapon in shaping public opinion, though it has no legal force. We should keep in mind these alternatives to impeachment, if only because they may be feasible when impeachment is not.

Impeachment, as the Founders formulated it, fits into the scheme of balancing the powers of the branches of government. When an impeachment process was proposed as part of the Constitution, many Founders opposed it because they felt that it gave the congress too much power over the president. They envisaged Congress regularly using the threat of impeachment to force the executive branch to do its bidding, which would push government toward a parliamentary model, in which the legislature dominates.

The consequence of that fear was that the Framers, when they decided that Congress should have impeachment power, limited it in two ways: 1) the president could only be impeached for very serious offenses; and 2) only if a majority of the House agreed upon the charges, and two-thirds of the Senate judged those charges to be valid, could impeachment result in the removal of the president from office.

It’s important to be clear about what counts as an impeachable offense. The constitution specifies “treason”, “bribery” and “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Treason and bribery seem fairly clear, but the remaining phrase is vague and no explication is given. Scholars have concluded that the vagueness was intentional; the Framers knew that it would be impossible for them to anticipate all the ways in which a president could endanger the nation. But there’s no doubt that they believed that impeachable offenses had to be grave and portentous ones.

It’s also generally agreed that the Founders did not intend to limit impeachable offenses to statutory crimes (though they didn’t exclude them). They were more concerned with political offenses, that is, with behaviors that undermine the Constitution and threaten the democratic system itself. They worried about presidents winning office by bribing the members of the Electoral College, or forming secret alliances with European powers. They worried about the betrayal of the public interest by a president who sought his own personal enrichment. In short, they worried about the corrupt misuse of presidential power.

What are not impeachable offenses? A president’s policies aren’t. However harmful they might be to the public, matters of policy are to be settled at the ballot box, not by impeachment. Nor is clumsy, inept or downright incompetent administration an impeachable offense. “Maladministration” was actually proposed by one Framer as such an offense, and it was rejected as a term far too broadly applicable.

What, then, are the impeachable offenses with which Trump might be charged? Treason is unlikely, since no country is presently at war with the U.S. Bribery is conceivable, for Trump might have been bribed by a Russian promise to aid in his election, and pledged in return to alter U.S. policy in Russia’s favor. Other possibilities include: quid pro quo arrangements with other foreign countries; nepotism; aiding white supremacists; receiving unlawful emoluments; failing to protect the nation against cyber attacks; obstructing justice; abusing the pardon power; undermining freedom of the press; and persistently lying to the American public. When the report of the Mueller investigation comes out, it’s probable that several of these will be confirmed, and new ones added.

But impeachable offenses do not an impeachment make. As congress is presently constituted, impeachment is impossible. Even if the Democrats win the House in the midterm elections and manage to gain a Senate seat or two, the current political climate of extreme polarization makes impeachment unlikely. We live in an age of what has been called “hyper-partisanship,” of political parties that have become tribalistic in their internal cohesiveness. So, polarization drives moderates and independents into the existing parties and, once inside, group loyalty binds them there. A two-thirds Senate vote to convict Trump seems unattainable under these circumstances.

Of course Trump may do something so outrageous – surely he came close with the “no tolerance” immigration policy — that some Republicans will bolt the party to save their political skins, and impeachment will become possible. That, unfortunately, is a hope accompanied by a good deal of fear.

Leonard Hitchcock of Pocatello is an alumnus of the University of Iowa and did graduate work at Claremont Graduate University and the University of California, San Diego. He taught philosophy in California and Arizona for 15 years. In 1985, after earning a library degree, he was hired by Idaho State University. He retired from ISU’s Oboler Library in 2006.