It's much harder to fire a president than a person in a regular because the job itself was obtained through Constitutional procedure (a nationwide vote) but it makes no sense for it to be as hard to remove a president as it is to get a criminal conviction.
Voting earlier on impeachment will not make another riot less likely.
The best situation is for Trump to resign. Pelosi wants to give Trump the chance to resign, or Pence the chance to evoke the 25th.
The other advantage is that it allows time for impeachment and removal to build support. More crazy evidence is coming out all the time, more big-name Republicans are signing on.
The drafters of the Constitution deliberately. . .
. . . made it hard to actually remove a president. Given the high bar (2/3 of the Senate) removal can't happen without a groundswell of support. A day or two allows the support to build.
This is going insanely fast.
The only reason the process can move this quickly it is right now is because (1) the crime was filmed, so an evidence-gathering deposition stage isn't needed and (2) a groundswell of support is gathering and course (3) a shocking crime.
Nancy Pelosi is probably the savviest politician in Washington. She's a master.
By the way, resignation is better because it happens immediately and avoids the circus of a trial. What do I mean by circus? Go watch the recording of Matt Gaetz from Wed.
Because Nancy Pelosi has the power to make Trump behave if only she would use it.
[I typed that in the sarcasm font]
Are men expected to have such superpowers, and then trashed when they don't?
If you missed the impeachment trial last year, this⤵️ will give you a good idea of why the optimal solution is for Trump to resign (or get forced out by the GOP).
GOP logic: If you impeach, we will attack everyone and make it as divisive as possible. . .
. . . so if you impeach, you will be responsible for dividing the country.
Similar example: First, the GOP tells people that there was fraud, then they cite the fact that so many people believe there was fraud as evidence for the need for more audits.
Trials (even quick ones) take time. Trump gets to put on a defense.
There are only two ways to force Trump out: 2/3 of the Senators send him the message that he leaves or gets removed, or Pence threatens the 25th Amendment.
With the supreme arrogance that comes from too much privilege, it seems to have never occurred to @hawleyMO and @tedcruz that all their lying could expose them to criminal liability.
People who follow me know I've been very resistant to using criminal law. I've often argued that punishment doesn't gain the desired results and that political problems can't be solved through the criminal justice system.
For people wondering a vote might be delayed until Monday, one reason is to allow support to build. Give more newspapers and governors a chance to weigh in. Let people process what happened Wednesday.
The event was so shocking, and shocking details are still coming out.
Trump "willfully made statements that encouraged—and foreseeably resulted in—imminent lawless action at the Capitol, injured law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress and the Vice President, interfered with. . .
. . . the Joint Session's solemn constitutional duty to certify the election results, and engaged in violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts."
His conduct "was consistent with prior efforts to subvert and obstruct the results of the 2020 presidential election."
2/
"Prior efforts" includes the call to Raffensperger.
In all of this, Trump:
🔹"gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government"
🔹"interfered with the peaceful transition of power"
He had spent so much time among like-minded people who hated Lincoln, and he had read so many accounts denouncing Lincoln as a tyrant bent on destroying the Constitution and "personal liberty" that he expected to be hailed as a hero.
2/
Instead he was stunned to learn that he was being hunted down like a beast, while Lincoln was held up throughout much of the nation as a martyred saint.
Source for this: The bibliography in my biography of Lincoln.
Turley's focus on his own feelings prevents him from seeing his bias. He doesn't see himself as a white supremacist: he just feels a tug of sympathy for what Trump stands for.
"Ethnic majorities rarely give up their power without a fight." Ziblatt and Levitsky.
This explains why they can spend years investigating Benghazi but excuse yesterday.
They had a visceral hatred for Hillary Clinton and a visceral sympathy for Trump.
The best explanation is in Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics.
The current GOP trajectory was in put in place during the Reagan era, but our current problems began with the Supreme Court decision in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education, the case that desgregated the schools.