It looks like 45 Republican Senators voted against holding an impeachment trial for Trump.

I hope nobody had high hopes that the GOP would do the right thing.

The GOP remains the Party of Trump and is hardening into an extremist anti-democratic

They are the anti-rule of law, anti truth party. https://t.co/e6EME39xNn
Fortunately, they're outnumbered.

Not by much, but they're outnumbered.
Hi, everyone.

A lot of these doomsday comments are annoying me.

Have you all learned nothing over the past few years?

You might want to duck because, I'm about to go on a tear . . .
The same people telling me we're doomed and democracy is dead are probably the same people who told me (1) Trump would make himself dictator (2) The Supreme Court would keep him in office and (3) he would never leave the White House.

Nobody owes you a democracy . . .
My mantra the past 4 years: democracy will survive if enough people want it to, and are willing to do the work.

Did the doomsday people happen to see that the vote was 55-45 in favor of holding a trial?

I think the problem is there has been so much peddling of hope porn. . .
There is no magic solution. No instant thing will suddenly make the dangerous extremists less dangerous.

The anti-democratic forces have been with us since the start of the nation.

None of this is new. Slavery was authoritarian. Jim Crow was authoritarian . . .
Women in the home was authoritarian.

We've had a brief period in American history (since the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board) in which we've moved toward becoming a true liberal democracy.

The backlash also started in 1954.

We're still riding the backlash. . .
The extremists are a significant percentage of the population. You can't build a big enough prison and put them all in it. You can't convert them and make them all comfortable in a liberal democracy.

All we can do is mobilize and start working on the next elections. . .
Because it's not over unless we all give up.

When we do, they win.Not before.

They fight hard. They lie and cheat. They make bad faith arguments. They encourage the spread of lies.

But we have the numbers.

Done.

More from Teri Kanefield

This is what he wants to do.

No matter how this trial plays out, the US will remain divided between those who choose truth, Democracy, and rule of law and the millions who reject these things.

1/


The question is how to move forward.

My mantra is that there are no magic bullets and these people will always be with us.

Except for state legislatures, they have less power now than they have for a while.

2/

The only real and lasting solutions are political ones. Get Democrats into local offices. Get people who want democracy to survive to the polls at every election, at every level.

It’s a constant battle.

3/

Maybe I should tell you all about Thurgood Marshall’s life to illustrate how hard the task is and how there will be backlash after each step of progress.

4/

Precisely. That's why Thurgood Marshall's life came to mind.

We are still riding the backlash that started after the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

That's why I keep saying there are no easy
Reading recommendation: Rand Corp, "The Russian Firehose of Falsehoods Propaganda Model," includes advice on how to counter a rapid and continuous stream of lies.
https://t.co/1Jg5CvgrJC

1/

The liar has a “shameless willingness” to tell outrageous lies that lots of people know are lies.

The liar doesn’t care about consistency.
He doesn’t care if it’s obvious he’s lying.
https://t.co/C08paJsKTT
In fact, that's the whole point.

Putin perfected the method.

2/

It seems to come naturally to Trump.

@TimothyDSnyder tells how reporters were often so astonished by Putin's outrageous lies, that they focused on the lies instead of Putin's latest atrocities.

The lies became the news.
The actual news gets pushed off the stage.

3/

The goal is the “disruption of truthful reporting and messaging.”
https://t.co/C08paJsKTT

That's why Trump really wants an actual trial, and why he was so annoyed with the Supreme Court (and other courts) refusing to hear the case.

He wants a stage for the lies.

4/

From the Rand study: The Firehose of Falsehood technique “entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”

I think the "entertainment" part applies to the GOP leadership who know Trump is lying but cheer the lies because they are so destructive.

5/
January 6th will be a freak show. Biden will become president because the only way to stop it would be for the House to agree, and that won't happen.

Going forward, the GOP becomes even more dangerous and radicalized.


A few hopeful points:

The GOP could very well lose control of the Senate.

Because these GOP Senators will force a vote, the GOP may fracture, with moderates forced out. While this radicalizes the party, they lose


A few reasons. As @ProfBrianKalt points out, refusing to seat them because they say the election wasn't valid gives credence to the lie that the election wasn't valid.

Moreover, there's no authority to refuse to seat an elected rep for telling lies. .


. . . which is what refusing to seat them would amount to.

The Democrats say, "You are doing really bad things so we won't seat you."

See the problem with that?

(1) It's illegal. The House doesn't get to decide who is seated. The states send their own reps.

moreover . . .

(2) If you say, "The House gets to refuse to seat a person who tells a lie about the election," where does that lead?

If things continue this direction, the political divide will not longer be liberal v. conservative.

The divide will be pro- democracy v. anti-democracy. . .

More from Government

How does a government put a legislation on 'hold'? Is there any constitutional mechanism for the executive to 'pause' a validly passed legislation? Genuine Koshan.


So a committee of 'wise men/women' selected by the SC will stand in judgement over the law passed by


Here is the thing - a law can be stayed based on usual methods, it can be held unconstitutional based on violation of the Constitution. There is no shortcut to this based on the say so of even a large number of people, merely because they are loud.


Tomorrow can all the income tax payers also gather up at whichever maidan and ask for repealing the income tax law? It hurts us and we can protest quite loudly.

How can a law be stayed or over-turned based on the nuisance value of the protestors? It is anarchy to allow that.

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