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      Mitch McConnell's impeachment speech was just a hostage video | Lloyd Green

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      The Republicans’ twin losses in the Georgia Senate runoffs have bound Mitch McConnell to Donald Trump for as long as the Kentuckian remains in office. The ex-president owns the Republican party. The Senate minority leader? He’s a rent-collector in a banker’s shirt.To McConnell’s disgust, so evident in his excoriation of Trump on the Senate floor on Saturday, moments after voting to acquit, he must labour in Trump’s shadow. Nationally, Kentucky’s senior senator is even more disliked than Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia’s conspiracy-mongering congresswoman.Even among Republicans, McConnell is relatively unpopular, and unlike Liz Cheney of Wyoming he is unwilling to risk their wrath. McConnell suffers his own precarity.The fact is, GOP senators who bucked Trump on impeachment offer cautionary tales for those who dare to cross him. By Saturday night, at least three had received home-state smackdowns.The Louisiana GOP censured Bill Cassidy while the chairs of the North Carolina and Pennsylvania parties upbraided their renegade senators. Richard Burr “shocked” Tar Heel Republicans while Pat Toomey “disappointed” those in the Keystone state. Both had already announced they will not seek re-election.But not all those who are leaving the Senate followed suit. Rob Portman of Ohio and Richard Shelby of Alabama fell into line. One more time.Trump risked turning Pence into a corpse and ultimately went unpunished. That hangman’s noose was built to be usedWhat was once the proud party of Lincoln and Reagan is now a Trump family rag – something to be used and abused by the 45th president like his bankrupt companies, namesake university and hapless vice-president, Mike Pence.If the impeachment trial established anything, it is that Trump risked turning Pence into a corpse and ultimately went unpunished. That hangman’s noose was built to be used.[embedded content]Yet even the former vice-president has remained mum and his brother, Greg Pence, a congressman from Indiana, voted against impeachment. Talk about taking one for the team.In the end, devotion to a former reality show host literally trumped life itself. The mob belongs to Trump – as the Capitol police can attest. So much for the GOP’s embrace of “law and order”. When it mattered most, it counted least.Like Moloch, Trump has elevated human sacrifice and personal devotion into the ultimate test. His indifference to Covid’s ravages was a harbinger of what came next, his raucous and at times violent rallies mere warm-up acts.When Trump mused about shooting some on Fifth Avenue and getting away with it, he wasn’t joking. He was simply stating a fact.His acquittal ensures that he and his family will be a force to be reckoned with over the next four years. Faced with a possible primary challenge from Ivanka Trump, Florida senator Marco Rubio months ago lavished praise on a Trump caravan that swarmed a Biden bus in Texas. He was ahead of the curve.Among the presidential wannabes, only Ben Sasse has grown a spine. His chances of winning are close to nilSince then, Nikki Haley, Trump’s first United Nations ambassador and a one-time South Carolina governor, has twisted herself into a pretzel to craft a message that will keep her former boss disarmed while convincing donors to empty their wallets. Good luck with that.Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are in a competition all their own as to who makes a better doormat. Among the 2024 presidential wannabes, only Ben Sasse has grown a spine. His chances of winning the brass ring are close to nil.A church-going Presbyterian, Sasse got it wrong when he announced that “politics isn’t about the weird worship of one dude”. The Senate’s vote says otherwise.Still, McConnell’s post-trial denunciation of Trump had some value. On top of labeling Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the events of 6 January, he provided an invitation and roadmap for law enforcement and the justice department.“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he’s in office,” McConnell said. “He didn’t get away with anything yet.”Already, prosecutors have homed in on Trump’s strong-arm efforts to overturn Georgia’s elections. Manhattan’s district attorney, Cyrus Vance, is locked in a death duel before the supreme court over Trump’s tax returns.Talk about synchronicity. Just hours before Saturday’s vote, reports emerged of Vance having expanded his investigation into Trump and four of his properties over loans extended by subsidiaries of Ladder Capital, a finance operation that also lent to Jared Kushner.Politically, Trump will likely hit the road for a vengeance tour aimed at those who opposed him. McConnell may yet emerge as another punching bag. And if Trump does, don’t expect anyone to have McConnell’s back. It is Trump’s party now. Everyone else is expendable. More

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      Convicted or not, Trump is history – it's Biden who's changing America | Robert Reich

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      While most of official Washington has been focused on the Senate impeachment trial, another part of Washington is preparing the most far-ranging changes in American social policy in a generation.Congress is moving ahead with Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which expands healthcare and unemployment benefits and contains one of the most ambitious efforts to reduce child poverty since the New Deal. Right behind it is Biden’s plan for infrastructure and jobs.The juxtaposition of Trump’s impeachment trial and Biden’s ambitious plans is no coincidence.Trump has left Republicans badly fractured and on the defensive. The party is imploding. Since the Capitol attack on 6 January, growing numbers of voters have deserted it. State and county committees are becoming wackier by the day. Big business no longer has a home in the crackpot GOP.This political void is allowing Biden and the Democrats, who control the White House and both houses of Congress, to respond boldly to the largest social and economic crisis since the Great Depression.Tens of millions are hurting. A record number of American children are impoverishedImportantly, they are now free to disregard conservative canards that have hobbled America’s ability to respond to public needs ever since Ronald Reagan convinced the nation big government was the problem.The first is the supposed omnipresent danger of inflation and the accompanying worry that public spending can easily overheat the economy.Rubbish. Inflation hasn’t reared its head in years, not even during the roaring job market of 2018 and 2019. “Overheating” may no longer even be a problem for globalized, high-tech economies whose goods and services are so easily replaceable.Biden’s ambitious plans are worth the small risk, in any event. If you hadn’t noticed, the American economy is becoming more unequal by the day. Bringing it to a boil may be the only way to lift the wages of the bottom half. The hope is that record low interest rates and vast public spending generate enough demand that employers will need to raise wages to find the workers they need.A few Democratic economists who should know better are sounding the false alarm about inflation, but Biden is wisely ignoring them. So should Democrats in Congress.Another conservative bromide is that a larger national debt crowds out private investment and slows growth. This view hamstrung the Clinton and Obama administrations as deficit hawks warned against public spending unaccompanied by tax increases to pay for it. (I still have some old injuries inflicted by those hawks.)Fortunately, Biden isn’t buying this, either.Four decades of chronic underemployment and stagnant wages have shown how important public spending is for sustained growth. Not incidentally, growth reduces the debt as a share of the overall economy. The real danger is the opposite: fiscal austerity shrinks economies and causes national debts to grow in proportion.The third canard is that generous safety nets discourage work.Democratic presidents from Franklin D Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson sought to alleviate poverty and economic insecurity with broad-based relief. But after Reagan tied public assistance to racism – deriding single-mother “welfare queens” – conservatives began demanding stringent work requirements so that only the “truly deserving” received help. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama acquiesced to this nonsense.Not Biden. His proposal would not only expand jobless benefits but also provide assistance to parents who are not working, thereby extending relief to 27 million children, including about half of all Black and Latino children. Republican senator Mitt Romney of Utah has put forward a similar plan.This is just common sense. Tens of millions are hurting. A record number of American children are impoverished, according to the most recent census data.The pandemic has also caused a large number of women to drop out of the labor force in order to care for children. With financial help, some will be able to pay for childcare and move back into paid work. After Canada enacted a national child allowance in 2006, employment rates for mothers increased. A decade later, when Canada increased its annual child allowance, its economy added jobs.It’s still unclear exactly what form Biden’s final plans will take as they work their way through Congress. He has razor-thin majorities in both chambers. In addition, most of his proposals are designed for the current emergency; they would need to be made permanent.But the stars are now better aligned for fundamental reform than they have been since Reagan.It’s no small irony that a half-century after Reagan persuaded Americans big government was the problem, Trump’s demise is finally liberating America from Reaganism – and letting the richest nation on earth give its people the social support they desperately need. More

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      Senate Republicans stand by their man and Trump wins his second acquittal | David Smith's sketch

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      If the denouement of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial had been a Hollywood film, stirring music would have struck up around the time Congressman Joe Neguse explained why he thinks the floor of the US Senate is “sacred”.“The 13th amendment, the amendment abolishing slavery was passed in this very room – not figuratively, literally where you all sit and where I stand,” said Neguse, the son of immigrants from Eritrea. “We made the decision to enter world war two from this chamber. We’ve certainly had our struggles but we’ve always risen to the occasion when it mattered the most.”Chords would have swelled as Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, looked the senators in the eye and implored: “The children of the insurrectionists – even the violent and dangerous ones – they’re our children, too.”And even hard-hearted Republicans would have turned to each other and wept when Raskin entreated: “Senators, this trial in the final analysis is not about Donald Trump. The country and world know who Donald Trump is. This trial is about who we are. Who we are!”But Washington is no Hollywood and the Senate – while it is predictable – doesn’t guarantee happy endings. The cold, hard fact of Trump’s second impeachment trial on Saturday was Trump’s second acquittal. His son, Eric, tweeted simply: “2-0.”As the time to vote arrived just before 4pm, the old chamber filled with a hubbub of expectant voices. McConnell, seated on the front row, planted the tips of his fingers together like a cartoon villain. The public gallery above was a sea of empty seats because of coronavirus precautions, although Democrat Congressman Al Green of Texas, a pioneer of Trump impeachment calls, was sitting alone and looking on.The charge against Trump of inciting insurrection was read. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the longest serving member of the Senate and presiding officer at the trial, said: “Senators, how say you? Is the respondent, Donald John Trump, guilty or not guilty?”Typically senators hold votes by shouting “Aye!” or “No!”. The manner in which each now took it turns to rise to their feet and utter “Guilty” or “Not guilty” gave the event new gravitas, as if suddenly evocative of a court of law.They cast their votes in alphabetical order with all senators except Rand Paul wearing masks due to the virus. The voicing of “guilty” or “not guilty” pinged back and forth between Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right.Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio offered a characteristically gravelly “Guilty.” Richard Burr of North Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana were the first Republicans to break ranks. Republican Ted Cruz rose to his feet, buttoned his blue jacket and said loudly: “Not guilty.”When his turn came, McConnell, who had described the vote as a “close call”, peeled off his mask and stood up with his hands folded in front of his yellow tie. “Not guilty,” he said, quietly but firmly.From that moment the die was cast. If the minority leader had gone against Trump, it is not hard to imagine that a sufficient number of Republicans would have followed to secure a conviction. For those who believe McConnell is the architect of much that has gone wrong in his party and country, it was another compelling piece of evidence.After about 10 minutes, the result was announced: 57 for guilty, 43 not guilty. Leahy declared: “Two-thirds of the senators present not having voted guilty, the Senate adjudges that the respondent, Donald John Trump, former president of the United States, is not guilty as charged on the article of impeachment.”If there’s one thing that McConnell has mastered over the years, it’s the art of having your cake and eating itIt was hardly a complete vindication. By a simple majority, Trump lost. It was the most bipartisan margin in favor of conviction in history. He was fortunate that Senate rules require two thirds of votes cast. The impeachment managers fell just 10 short.In one of the last spaces on earth where phones and laptops are prohibited, reporters bolted from the press gallery to hit their deadlines. Most senators also hurtled towards the exits. But a few from both parties made their way over to Ben Sasse, one of the Republican rebels, to offer supportive words or taps on the arm. As the Senate returned to its usual state – almost empty – there was a final twist. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, spoke from the heart: “This trial wasn’t even about choosing country over party, even not that. This was about choosing country over Donald Trump. And 43 Republican members chose Trump. They chose Trump. It should be a weight on their conscience today. And it shall be a weight upon their conscience in the future.”And then McConnell gave his most damning criticism yet of the former president. “Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty,” he said. “There is no question – none – that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.”McConnell had only voted to acquit, he claimed, because of a technicality: Citizen Trump is “constitutionally not eligible for conviction”.Only in today’s Washington could someone be so clear-eyed about the greatest ever betrayal by a US president of his oath and office just minutes after letting him off the hook. It was like a juror at the OJ Simpson trial voting not guilty then rushing outside with the news that yes, of course he did it.But if there’s one thing that McConnell has mastered over the years, it’s the art of having your cake and eating it too. More

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      Romney: impeachment row with fellow Republican was about 'boxers or briefs'

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      Mitt Romney suggested on Saturday that a heated argument he was seen to have with a Republican colleague in the Senate chamber was not about whether witnesses should be called in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial – but concerned the age-old question: “Boxers versus briefs”.After a surprise move by House managers on Saturday morning, Romney was one of five Republicans to vote for the calling of witnesses.Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was among 45 who still backed their former president, who went on to be acquitted of inciting the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January. But before a deal was struck to avoid calling witnesses, Romney and Johnson were seen to engage in a fierce exchange.Quoting Jason Donner, a Fox News producer, Andrew Desiderio, a Politico reporter, tweeted: “Ron Johnson turned to Mitt Romney and was upset with him, even pointing at him once. Johnson was visibly upset …“They were going back and forth with [Alaska senator Dan] Sullivan in the middle of them. I heard Johnson tell Romney, ‘Blame you.’ Voices were definitely raised.”Johnson complained that the exchange had been reported, telling reporters: “That’s grotesque you guys are recording this.” Reporters pointed out the exchange happened in public, on the Senate floor.Romney sought to defuse the row, telling reporters it was about underwear preferences. “We were arguing about boxers versus briefs,” he reportedly said.As it happens, as an observant member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Romney has been seen to wear a “temple garment” under his clothes. Some public figures have been condemned for mocking the two-piece underwear as “magic Mormon underpants”. Members of the church regard such mockery as prejudiced and offensive.In 2012, as Romney ran for the White House and the singer Cher ran into trouble for mocking his underwear, one news outlet offered a guide to the garment. On Saturday, though, for anyone seeking to use the guide to divine which side of the “boxers versus briefs” argument Romney might have taken against Johnson, enlightenment remained elusive.“Garments today come in two pieces,” BuzzFeed News reported. “A white undershirt, and white boxer brief-style shorts.” More

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      Five Republicans join vote for witnesses in Trump Senate trial – video

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      Five Senate Republicans voted with the Democrats on Saturday, that the Senate should call witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
      Before the 55-45 vote, Trump’s impeachment lawyer Michael van der Veen warned senators that if Democrats wished to call a witness, he would ask for at least 100 witnesses and insist they give depositions in person in his office in Philadelphia – a threat that prompted laughter from the chamber.
      Impeachment: five Republicans join vote for witnesses in Trump Senate trial More

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      For Trump, V is for victory – while his lawyers flick a V-sign our way | Richard Wolffe

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      You may have thought the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump was somehow connected to the fascist mob that staged an insurrection on Capitol Hill last month.According to Trump’s lawyers, you are clearly an idiot.In actual fact, the former president was impeached for using the word “fight” – a crime committed by everyone in Congress and a good number of other people you might know.Madonna, for instance. Johnny Depp too. Seriously, America. If it’s OK for Madonna to talk about fighting, or voguing, or being a material girl, what’s the big deal?If the star of Pirates of the Caribbean can talk about walking the gangplank or shivering his timbers, then who is to deny our beloved former president the right to also don an eyepatch and wave a cutlass in our general direction?There was lots of video on the day of the greatest Trump lawyering of all. Mostly the same video, played over and over again, sometimes two or three times in quick succession like a Max Headroom compilation of politicians saying the word “fight”.There was President Biden, and Vice-President Harris. There were a bunch of former Democratic presidential candidates. Also some House impeachment managers.The only challenge for Trump’s lawyers is that none of them led an insurrection. None of them urged a mob to storm Congress. None of them timed their fight song for the precise moment when elected officials were carrying out their constitutional duty to certify an election’s results.[embedded content]But we digress. Back to the best lawyering in the land, a veritable elite strike force of jurists not seen since the last one outside that landscaping business next to the sex shop in a particularly lovely corner of Philadelphia.The strike force featured a new striker. Not the bumbling, rambling Bruce Castor, or the endlessly pedantic David Schoen. No, this time Trump bestowed upon his historic impeachment trial a personal injury lawyer from – yes, you guessed it – Philadelphia. An ambulance chaser, best known in Philly for his radio ads, asking if you’ve tripped while walking down the street.“If the walkway isn’t clear, and you fall and get hurt due to snow and ice, call 215-546-1000 for Van der Veen, O’Neill, Hartshorn and Levin,” the ads say, according to the Washington Post. “The V is for Victory.”Last year Mr V was actually suing Trump for his unfounded claims about mail-in voter fraud. This year, he is not so much chasing the ambulance as driving it.First, Mr V claimed that Trump was encouraging his supporters to respect the electoral college count, not to “stop the steal” as the entire mob was screaming in front of him. Then he claimed that the first of the mob to be arrested was a lefty antifa stooge, not a Trumpy fascist thug.But mostly he claimed that he – and his client – were defending the constitution at the precise moment when they were burning it to crispy charcoal husk.OK, so the Trump mob unleashed violence to stop the constitutional counting of the electoral college votes. But the idea that Congress might stop Trump’s free-speech rights to whip up that mob is an outrageous, unconstitutional human rights abuse that threatens to silence all politicians everywhere.OK, so the Trump mob might have silenced Mike Pence permanently by hanging him on the gallows they built on the steps of Congress. But if Congress tries to stop a president from using a mob to intimidate Congress, where will it end?Pretty soon, Mr V argued, we won’t even have access to lawyers. The hallowed right to counsel, if not ambulance chasers, might be threatened. “Who would be next,” he asked, indignantly. “It could be anyone. One of you! Or one of you! It’s anti-American and sets a dangerous precedent forever.”To his great, sighing chagrin, Mr V lamented the state of political discourse. “Inflammatory rhetoric from our elected officials – from both sides of the aisle – has been alarming frankly,” he said, in sorrow, as if his client were just a hapless symptom of a bigger sickness: a pandemic of mean words from Democrats.“This is not whataboutism,” he declared, after rolling his whataboutist video for the second or third or fourth time. “I’m showing you this to show that all political speech must be protected.”The key to the defense was about incitement to violence and the legal test of Brandenburg v Ohio. Appropriately enough, the Brandenburg in question was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan and the test – as Trump’s lawyers helpfully explained – was about whether the free speech in question “explicitly or implicitly encouraged the use of violence or lawless action”.“Mr Trump did the opposite of advocating for lawless action,” said Mr V. “The opposite!”The worst news of all was that Bruce Castor was at the microphone, pretending to be a half-decent lawyerThis is only true if it’s opposite day, when opposite means the opposite of opposite. As it happens, it was indeed just that day at the impeachment trial of our great defender of the constitution, free speech and peaceful politics.Which is why Mr V’s partner, the now legendary Bruce Castor, concluded the defense case. Castor explained that because he was the lead attorney in this legal shenanigan, he was going to take “the most substantive part” of the case for himself. That wasn’t to say, he added hastily, that his learned friends had done a bad job, oh no. The good news, he said, was that the case was almost over. The bad news was that it would take another hour for it to be over.The worst news of all was that Castor was at the microphone, pretending to be a half-decent lawyer.“Did the 45th president engage in incitement – they say insurrection,” began Castor. “Clearly there was no insurrection,” he continued, defining the word as “taking the TV stations over and having some idea of what you’re going to do when you take power”.As a description of the Trump presidency, that sounded pretty accurate. Unlike the part Castor read from his notes about Trump’s attitudes towards mobs in general.“By any measure,” the lawyer said in his most Trumpy way, “President Trump is the most pro-police, anti-mob president this country has ever seen.”From that point on, the defense case smooshed together some condemnation of the Black Lives Matter protests, some justification of Trump’s campaign to overturn the election results in Georgia, and some accusation of a supposed effort to disenfranchise Trump voters – who lost the election.Like so much else connected to the scrambled neural networks inside one Florida resident’s cranium, it made no sense. It was a radio echo bouncing around the cosmos from a distant star that collapsed into a black hole of disinformation and delusion long ago.“Spare us the hypocrisy and false indignation,” said Mr V, as he wrapped up another hypocritical and falsely indignant response to the same old video of Democrats saying fiery things.Now all we have left is the hypocrisy and false indignation of Republican senators who value their own careers above their own lives or the democracy that elected them. The V is for venal. More

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      Impeachment trial: defense lawyers argue Trump is victim of 'cancel culture'

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      Donald Trump’s lawyers launched their attempt to defend the former president on Friday, saying the second impeachment trial was a “politically motivated witch-hunt”.Michael van der Veen, one of Trump’s attorneys, used that phrase on Friday to describe Democrats’ motivation for impeaching Trump a second time. He argued Trump’s heated rhetoric on 6 January was no different than the language politicians frequently use in American politics today. Trump exhorted his supporters to “fight like hell” during a rally just before they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington and attacked the US Capitol.“No thinking person could seriously believe that the president’s January 6 speech on the Ellipse was in any way an incitement to violence or insurrection,” Van der Veen said.He also veered away from the events on 6 January, instead focusing on several instances over the last year in which he accused Democrats of using similar heated language and not doing enough to condemn violent protesters.“This unprecedented effort is not about Democrats opposing political violence. It is about Democrats trying to disqualify their political opposition. It is constitutional cancel culture,” he said. “History will record this shameful effort as a deliberate attempt by the Democrat party to smear, censor and cancel not just President Trump, but the 75 million Americans who voted for him.”At one point, Trump’s lawyers played an extensive supercut of Democratic politicians using the word “fight” in an attempt to argue that Democrats were being hypocritical for impeaching Trump. But Democrats have said Trump wasn’t impeached merely for saying the word “fight” – he invited supporters to Washington on the day Congress was counting the electoral college, and after years of encouraging violence, told his supporters to “fight” and descend on the capitol.Democrats spent much of the week pre-butting some of those arguments. They played numerous videos in which the insurrectionists shouted at police that they had been invited there by Trump, and pointed to several court documents in which rioters charged with criminal offenses have said they were acting at Trump’s behest.“President Trump was not impeached because he used words that the House decided are forbidden or unpopular. He was impeached for inciting armed violence against the government of the United States of America,” David Cicilline, a House impeachment manager, said earlier this week.Jamie Raskin, the lead House Democratic prosecutor, addressed the claim that Trump’s statements were protected by the first amendment earlier in the week, saying it was “absurd”. While a private citizen can urge overthrow of the government, Raskin said, the president of the United States, who swears an oath to defend the nation against all enemies, cannot do the same.“If you’re president of the United States, you’ve chosen a side with your oath of office,” Raskin, a longtime constitutional law professor, said earlier this week. “And if you break it, we can impeach, convict, remove and disqualify you permanently from holding any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.”Trump’s lawyers signaled they intend to present a brief defense today.The attorneys are likely to try to redirect the responsibility from the former president to solely the people who laid siege to the Capitol. They also plan to argue that his speech at that day’s rally was protected by the first amendment. Trump’s lawyers are likely to frame the impeachment trial as a rushed effort without due process that is driven by Democrats’ personal animus, according to the Associated Press.Though Trump’s team has 16 hours to make their case, they intend to only use three or four hours to do so, Schoen told reporters on Thursday. Republicans want to conclude the trial quickly, according to Axios, after Democrats mounted a strong prosecution filled with harrowing videos.Trump’s lawyers will go into their arguments knowing that 17 Republicans would need to vote to find Trump guilty in order to convict him. It is unlikely so many Republicans would vote against the former president, increasing his chances of being acquitted.Trump’s team may also revisit the argument that Trump cannot be impeached because he is no longer in office. A majority of senators – including six Republicans – rejected that argument after hearing hours of debate on the issue on Tuesday.Friday will be the first time Trump’s lawyers will present arguments in the trial since a rocky opening on Tuesday. Bruce Castor, a Pennsylvania prosecutor serving as one of Trump’s attorneys, gave meandering opening remarks that were difficult to follow, a performance that reportedly infuriated Trump.Depending on when arguments conclude, there could be a vote in the trial as soon as Saturday. More

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      Acquitting Trump would spell grave danger for US democracy | Jonathan Freedland

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      Rare is the trial that takes place at the scene of the crime. Rarer still is the trial where the jurors are also witnesses to, if not victims of, that crime. Which means that the case of Donald Trump should be open and shut, a slam-dunk. Because those sitting in judgment saw the consequences of what Trump did on 6 January. They heard it. And, as security footage played during this week’s proceedings showed, they ran for their lives because of it.
      And yet, most watching the second trial of Trump – only the fourth impeachment in US history – presume that it will end in his acquittal. They expect that fewer than 17 Republican senators will find the former president guilty of inciting an insurrection and so, lacking the required two-thirds majority, the verdict will be not guilty. Barring a late spasm of conscience by the senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, Trump will pronounce himself vindicated, the case against him a hoax and he will be free to run again in 2024 – and to loom over his party as its dominant presence at least until then.
      That fact alone should quash the temptation to regard the current proceedings, which could conclude this weekend, as a footnote to the Trump era, one to be safely tucked away in the history books. The reverse is true. The likely acquittal suggests the danger of Trump has far from passed: the threat he embodied remains live and active – and is now embedded deep inside the US body politic.
      The Democratic members of the House of Representatives acting as prosecutors have laid out an unanswerable case. Vividly and with extensive use of video, they have reminded senators – and the watching public – of the vehemence and violence of the mob that stormed the Capitol last month, how Trump supporters attacked police officers, even using poles carrying the American flag to bludgeon those in uniform. They’ve shown how close the rioters came to finding elected officials, how they hunted them down marbled corridors and stone staircases, looking for “fucking traitors”. They had a gallows and noose ready.
      Naturally, Republicans have bitten their lip and said how awful it all was – but have insisted none of it can be blamed on Trump. So the prosecution reminded them of Trump’s words on the day, telling the crowd within striking distance of Congress to head over there, “to show strength” and to “fight like hell”. Oh, but only “idiots” could take such language literally, say Trump’s defenders. Except those who sacked the Capitol took it very literally, filmed as they told the besieged police that they had been “invited” there by the president, that they were “fighting for Trump” at his urging. They believed they were following his explicit instructions.
      The incitement was not confined to that speech, but began long before – and continued after – the rioting started. Trump whipped up the Washington crowd that bitter January day, but he’d been whipping up his supporters for nearly a year, telling them the 2020 election would be stolen, that the only way he could possibly lose would be if the contest was rigged. The big lie that drove the crowd to break down the doors and run riot was that Trump had won and Joe Biden had lost the election – that a contest that was, in fact, free and fair was instead fraudulent, despite 59 out of 60 claims of voter fraud being thrown out of courts across the US through lack of evidence. Their aim was to stop the formal certification ceremony, to “stop the steal” – as Trump had demanded they must for several months.
      So much for incitement before the riot. Among the most shocking facts laid bare this week was that Trump’s incitement persisted even after the violence was under way. One of the former president’s most ardent supporters, Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville, let slip that he had told Trump by phone that vice-president Mike Pence had had to be removed from the chamber for his own safety. And yet, minutes after that call, Trump tweeted an attack on Pence for failing to have “the courage” to thwart Biden’s victory, all but painting a target on the VP’s back.
      Couple that with Trump’s failure to do anything to stop the violence once it had begun – the two-hour delay before sending backup for the police – and the picture is complete: a president who urged a murderous mob to overturn a democratic election by force, who watched them attempt it, who did nothing to stop it and even directed their anger towards specific, named targets. Put it this way, what more would a president have to do to be found guilty of inciting an insurrection?
      Republicans have sought refuge in the first amendment, saying Trump’s words were protected by his right to free speech, or else that it’s improper to convict a president once he’s left office. Most legal scholars wave aside those arguments, but let’s not pretend Republicans’ objections are on legal grounds. They are not acting as sincere jurors, weighing the evidence in good faith. If they were, then three of them would not have met Trump’s legal team to discuss strategy on Thursday, in what is surely a rather novel reading of jury service.
      No, the law is not driving these people to say Trump should be given a free pass for his crime. It is fear. They felt fear on 6 January, when some of them went on camera to beg Trump to call off his mob, but they feel a greater fear now. They fear the threat Trump made in his speech that day, when he told the crowd “we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight”. Republican senators fear internal party challenges from Trumpists in their states, and they fear a base that is now the obedient creature of Donald Trump. Their only way out, they think, is to acquit a man they surely know – must know – is guilty as charged.
      The consequences are perilous. Most directly, Trump will be able to run again, and will be free to try the same trick anew – unleashing his shock troops to ensure his will is done. If Trump loses, say, the New Hampshire primary in 2024, what’s to prevent him urging his devotees to “stop the steal” once more? Even after Trump is gone, a grim precedent will exist. House Democrat Jamie Raskin was right to warn Republicans that acquittal would “set a new terrible standard for presidential misconduct”. When a future president doesn’t get their way, they can simply incite violence against the system they are pledged to defend.
      Still, the greatest danger is not in the future. It is clear and present. It is that one of the US’s two governing parties is poised to approve the notion that democracy can be overturned by force. By acquitting Trump, the Republicans will declare themselves no longer bound by the constitution or the rule of law or even reality, refusing to break from the lie that their party won an election that it lost. This poison is not confined to the extremities of the US body politic. It is now in its blood and in its heart.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist More