So as I alluded to in my impeachment thread, I don't think the Democrats made their case as strongly as they could have, but they didn't need to because Donald Trump himself made the case for them.

The Senate trial will be different and I hope they make the strongest case.
Today was really more of a procedural vote than anything. The votes needed were lined up beforehand, with some wiggle room on the Republican side.
There is a chance! For my money, assuming nothing major and unexpected changes between then and now, the chance rests on enough Republicans seeing and seizing on a chance to be FREE of him.

The big case against conviction on the Republican side is: we're afraid of Trump and he can hurt us politically if we anger him. But the Georgia run-offs and the Peril of Pence show the limits of that argument: it's impossible to keep him happy and he'll blame you for failing.
The Republican argument for convicting him is, if they can keep him from running at all in 2024 then he can't run in 2024. They get to have a primary without him. They get to have an election without him.
And if they feel like they can keep him sufficiently ostracized and marginalized and sidelined that he can't set himself up as a mainstream Republican kingmaker, I think some of them will vote to kick him all the way to the curb. On garbage night.
If there's no chance of him being president again, then he automagically loses a big chunk of political relevancy overnight. Maybe not as much as most people would, and a lot of that depends on if Twitter et al hold a firm line against him.
All of this analysis is assuming there is zero room for actual principles, zero room for actual courage, zero chance for even having any personal indignation that he attacked Congress and imperiled their lives.
If any Republicans take those factors into account... I'll be surprised, but it amps the possibility of conviction.
Now, the likelihood is high that by the time the Senate re-convenes we will know even more about what happened on and leading up to January 6th and it won't reflect well on Trump, Trump's family, and Trump's administration. That likely ups the odds of conviction.
The likelihood is also high that there will be at least some attempts at further insurrection in the dates running up to and including January 20th, and this will likely also not reflect great on Trump and his team.
McConnell prevented an actual trial from happening last time around and Republicans voted almost entirely on party lines. This time, he'll be passing the gavel to the Democrats and the Impeachment Managers (from the House) will get to actually present a case.
I make no prediction as to the outcome but I am confident in saying that conviction is a possible outcome, in a way it wasn't last time.
At a guess? I think he feels like if he *has* to give up the power, he'll happily hand off the responsibility.

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More from @AlexandraErin

14 Jan
100% stunt.

It's hard to make out in that picture, but I'm pretty sure this mask says "molon labe", the quick and dirty romanization of the Spartans' "come and take them" and a popular rallying cry for murdertoy enthusiasts.
When I say this is a stunt I don't mean to trivialize it; she's trying to enhance a pre-existing narrative that Congress is exactly the kind of tyrants that our country revolted against at its inception.
But she created this scene for maximum calculated effect.
Read 5 tweets
14 Jan
I don't care to try to parse out what the worst is, but him firing Comey and bragging about why he did it should have been enough for the country and for Congress.
And you know, just yesterday I told Comey to shut up forever and I meant it. I don't say this because I'm a fan of Comey. Comey *should* have faced more consequences than he did.
The right loves to play the game of "Oh you all hated Comey until Trump fired him and now you think he's an angel who could do no wrong." Nah. Fire Comey and Trump both.
Read 16 tweets
14 Jan
The good news and bad news is that presidential libraries are privately funded, so we can't stop him from having one but we don't have to pay for it. He can grift his followers for it.
Which makes the obvious answer for the "Where will Trump's library be?" on one of his own properties, assuming he can hang onto them. That makes it easier for him to funnel donated funds into his own personal uses.
I went to a Hollywood wax museum in Branson, Missouri (Christian Vegas) that used a Charlton Heston exhibit just before the end to segue into "But the real leading man is Jesus Christ" and I kind of envision something like that but with Donald Trump.

Read 4 tweets
14 Jan
So Ben Shapiro wants to know what the difference between Donald Trump saying the election was stolen and Stacey Abrams saying she was a victim of voter suppression is.

Donald Trump tried to coerce government officials and sent an angry mob to overturn the results.
Stacey Abrams did not do that. She acknowledged that Kemp was the winner under the system we have, and then went on to dedicate herself to the hard work of overcoming the bias built into the system in order to gain enough power to correct it.
There is also the fact that Stacey Abrams is right and Donald Trump is wrong, but for me the question Ben is asking is more about what they do. We can't fully rule out the possibility that Trump sincerely believes he's right, too.
Read 9 tweets
14 Jan
I'm simultaneously shaking my head at the utter naive fabulism of imagining they could "arrest" congresspeople with no guns and the cynical ruthlessness of thinking the could sway Congress floor votes by implying they're killing reps.
I just... I'm trying to imagine the headspace of someone who believes they could rush the floor of Congress and abduct people off it and that they would then be left alone *and* Congress would keep counting votes and voting on accepting votes after that point.
And I want to say that there's no way a person could sincerely put that forward and this therefore is somebody who was trying to encourage people to storm the capitol by spinning out a non-violent fairytale where they get the vote overturned by "keeping them honest".
Read 7 tweets
14 Jan
So Republicans purport to want to know what's the difference between Democrats and other politicians talking about "let's get out there and fight" and when Trump does it, and the answer is simple:

Trump has put in the work with his base so they'll understand him to mean violence
Early on in his political career, Donald Trump spoke glowingly of police roughing up suspects. He's directed violence towards protesters and reporters in his crowd. He's spoken about the need to "get tough" and made it clear he means physically.
It's true, there is a lot of metaphorical and hyperbolic talk about fighting in politics, and maybe post-Trump we'll see people back off from that for a bit, I don't know. Couldn't say.

But Trump took the time to clarify over the years that he's not being metaphorical.
Read 7 tweets

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