Open thread: Impeachment trial, day two

Yesterday's session of the Senate trial of Donald Trump began in the strongest, most jarring manner, with the House managers showing this video of the events of January 6th:

I won't lie. Watching this video was traumatic. I've seen, as all of you have, clips and snippets since the insurrection. But this video was so effective and so emotional because in one 13-minute presentation you saw the meat of what transpired on Capitol Hill that day.

The House managers laid out their case both emotionally and legally, like any good trial lawyer. And their case—and the lack of any rational rebuttal from Trump's defense team—swayed at least one more Republican, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana—not known for his liberal tendencies—to vote for the trial's constitutionality.

There is no question that the House managers won the day yesterday. Trump's lawyers were by turns pathetic and unhinged, with Bruce Castor and David Schoen having to revise their strategy after the managers dropped the 16-ton anvil on them. Trump's lawyers did him no favors, arguing on matters of process, rather than saying that their client wasn't guilty of inciting a rebellion. 

Forty-four Republican senators voted to give presidents "January exemptions" from stoking sedition. (Of course, if a Democrat had done it...) If we're to get eleven more Republicans to join the six so far who are amenable to convicting Trump, it won't be from pricked consciences. They have none. But if yesterday was anything to go by, the House managers will be presenting damning evidence over the next two days, evidence which Trump's lawyers will be unable to refute. This evidence will move the needle of public opinion even more towards convicting Trump and barring him from ever running for office again. A hard haul, but a week is a long time.

Of course, Trump doesn't have to be convicted to damage the GOP's chances in 2022. It's no doubt that the Democrats are playing to the real court, that of public opinion. Over a week, they will lay out, for hours a day, just how close this Republic came to falling. And it will lay the blame squarely on not just Trump, but on his enablers in the GOP. In rock-red states, this won't matter. But in the emerging Sun Belt wall which Democrats are building, as well as in quickly blue-turning suburbs, Republicans will be the party of sedition and treason. Fortune's wheel keeps turning, and the party which was founded to hold together the Union is now the party which is tearing it apart.

We don't need unity with seditionists. We need unity with the vast majority which views the insurrection as one of the darkest days in this country's history. Republican senators, were they smart and just the slightest bit courageous, would stick the knife in Trump's face. But, fearful of a primary, they won't. However, what will win them a primary race will doom enough of them in a general election to consign them to a permanent minority. I'll take that.

This is your open thread.