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Open thread: Impeachment trial, Day Three

Nicolle Wallace, when speaking with Senator Angus King, commented that she has had the hope beaten out of her as far as the GOP doing the right thing is concerned. The news which elicited that comment was Sen. King revealing to her that a Republican colleague had told him that he hopes the American people are watching the proceedings. This was not one of the six who voted with Democrats and Independents to affirm the trial's constitutionality.

This news followed upon this report from CBS News:


If true, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has given the green light for members of his caucus to vote their consciences and move to convict Donald Trump.

Again, I'm not going to hang my hat on these anecdotes. Although hope hasn't been completely beaten out of me, I do have a gimlet eye. If eleven or more GOP senators are moved to vote to convict, it'll be out of pure self-interest, not out of any fealty to our democratic system of government. Churlish? Perhaps. But it's nothing they don't deserve.

Yesterday was hard to watch. Even more so than Tuesday, the House managers laid out, in minute-by-minute detail, the progress of the January 6th Insurrection. The mob was bent on death, and nothing less. It was by the grace of God that there weren't more casualties.

Conviction or no, the GOP is on the verge of meeting its quietus. This trial will turn the country outside of the fevered swamps against the Republican Party in a way no dry politics could have. Not brown babies in cages, not the Muslim ban, not the myriad other malfeasances perpetrated by this party. The GOP is the party of sedition and treason, and the overwhelming majority of Americans are not going to cotton that.

Day Three, friends. Buckle up.