“The central fact of American politics today is that one of the country’s two major political parties is broken. Not merely wrong, but broken in a fundamental way, hostile to democracy and incapable of serving as a good-faith partner in governing.
Trump repeatedly attempted to overturn a legitimate election, an effort that culminated in inciting a mob that threatened the lives of members of Congress. Yet Republicans in that body cannot bring themselves to inflict the appropriate constitutional punishment for this kind of offense even after he has left office and is no longer needed to get judges confirmed and tax cuts passed.
Democracies require accountability to function. Political elites must be held responsible for grievous errors and punished accordingly. The GOP’s decay has destroyed this possibility — but the Senate trial is a necessary step toward fighting back.”
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“It will show that, even in the dramatic case of outright insurrection against the US government, the country’s political system is incapable of holding elites accountable largely due to one party’s extreme partisanship. Demonstrating this will serve as a justification for people, Democrats and civil society alike, to take more dramatic steps to repair American democracy down the line — including pushing for significant reforms of the political system.”
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“To really fix America, Democrats need to engage in a kind of partisan warfare: They need to inflict costs for past misbehavior not only on Trump, but on the Republican Party that enabled him. Most fundamentally, they need to roll back the anti-democratic practices — like extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics — that permit Republicans to remain competitive while appealing primarily to the most reactionary elements of the American public.
There are no costs that politicians pay attention to more than electoral ones. And if Republicans can’t win in the future by embracing leaders like Trump, they won’t be so comfortable excusing anti-democratic abuses down the line.
The tactics Democrats will need to employ in doing this — most notably, radically revising the filibuster to allow the passage of pro-democracy legislation along party lines — will seem extreme. But they will be more justifiable, including to moderate Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) — in a world where it’s clear that the normal levers of political accountability are broken. It is a way of showing that radical procedural reforms really are a “last resort.”
So failing to convict Trump again will further underscore that impeachment is a paper tiger, at least for Republican presidents. But that horse is already out of the barn. Trying and failing once again, when the anti-democratic offense is much greater and the cost to Republicans for convicting is much lower, will help underscore just how deeply complicit they are in the events of January 6 — and build the case for others, Democrats and non-politicians alike, to punish them accordingly.”