We begin today’s roundup with Michelle Goldberg’s take at The New York Times on how to hold Donald Trump accountable:
To Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, this is no comfort. “You’ve got to rewind to pre-Trump days,” he said. “Politicians should not be telling prosecutors who to prosecute.” Impeachment was a way for our political system to defend itself, and it failed. “We had an opportunity to deal with the clear and present danger that is Donald Trump in a bipartisan way through our constitutional system,” he said. “The Republican Party could not join the effort in sufficient numbers to make it completely successful, so now they are either going to have to fight him internally, or, more likely, they will become an autocratic political party that really does operate like a religious cult.”
This is true. But if we cannot restore pre-Trump norms, McConnell has at least stripped away some of the taboo about prosecuting a former president. In addition to the investigations of Trump’s business practices in New York, prosecutors in Georgia have opened a criminal investigation into his attempts to subvert the election there. Washington’s attorney general is reportedly considering charging Trump with violating a District of Columbia law against provoking violence. Joe Biden’s Justice Department could look into the countless federal crimes Trump appeared to commit in office.
Decisions to pursue charges shouldn’t be made by politicians, but they shouldn’t be blocked by them, either.
David Remnick at The New Yorker:
What’s become evident is that Republican members of Congress fear not only the indignity of losing a primary; some have come to fear the potential for violence among their constituents. Rather than persuade, resist, or prosecute such people, they placate them. To do so, they bow in the direction of Palm Beach.
[...]
The trial ended in a sour acquittal. A shamed ex-President would inevitably declare victory.
But it is no victory at all. Within hours of his Inauguration, Joe Biden cancelled the plans of the 1776 Commission. Propaganda would not become the law of the land. In his closing argument, Raskin quoted a Black Capitol Police officer who, after being called the N-word repeatedly, after his fellow-officers were beaten, abused, bashed with flag poles, and sprayed with bear repellent, asked, “Is this America?” History will judge Donald Trump severely for his crimes against the United States.
Katrina vanden Heuvel describes how to hold Senate Republicans accountable:
No parade of witnesses could have changed the minds of senators voting to save their own seats rather than to defend the republic. The only way to concentrate their minds is for the rest of us to mobilize and defeat them at the polls for their craven failure to serve their country. Many Republicans may still be beguiled by Trump, but they are a far remove from the majority of Americans.
Politico gives us new polling on how Trumpism and the Republican Party are one and the same:
Republican voters got over any misgivings they had about Trump’s role on Jan. 6 very quickly. Fifty-nine percent of Republican voters said they want Trump to play a major role in their party going forward. That’s up 18 percentage points from a Morning Consult poll conducted on Jan. 7, and an increase of 9 points from a follow-up poll on Jan. 25, before the impeachment trial began.
Another piece of evidence: While Trump’s overall favorability rating is an abysmal 34% in our latest poll, 81% of Republican respondents gave him positive marks. Trump was at 77% approval among Republicans on Jan. 7 and 74% on Jan. 25.
Meanwhile, Eugene Robinson uses his column to refocus on the Biden presidency:
The time has come to leave the sins and wickedness of the 45th president to the criminal justice system — and to turn attention and energy to the challenges and opportunities that face the 46th. Allowing ourselves to be held captive by the past four years serves no one except a certain self-obsessed ex-president. Better to spend that energy where it can make an actual difference.
