The TDS-addled viewers that comprise the audience for MSNBC don’t want honest appraisals of the strength of the case presented by the House impeachment managers. They have become a cult founded on the belief that Donald Trump somehow is a threat to the Republic, though the concentration camps, wars blundered into, and economic depression so confidently predicted have nowhere manifested themselves in this dimension of reality. The only apocalypse in sight is a potential crushing Democrat defeat at the polls in November once voters focus on whether their lives are better off now than they were 4 years ago.

President Trump is still hated with passion, but cultists hate heretics even more than they hate the imagined progenitor of apocalypse their fevered vision predicts. Heretics are simply intolerable, for they undermine the solidarity that enables the cultists to continue to believe their fantasies, the absurd storylines in which they are the saviors of an ungrateful mass not sufficiently woke enough to perceive the danger that preoccupies their waking hours and their dreams.

Poor Ari Melber, chief legal analyst at MSNBC and host of The Beat with Ari Melber, must have thought that his role at the network included sober and fair legal analysis. What else could explain him delivering a verdict on the case presented by the House Impeachment Managers that was less than full throated endorsement of the need to assemble with pitchforks and torches and march on the White House?

Watch as Melber, a Cornell Law School graduate, comments on the adequacy of the evidence assembled by the House Democrats and presented to the Senate, and receives pushback from panelists Maya Wiley and former Senator Claire McCaskill:

Rush transcript via Grabien:

Entire argument, when you look at the abuse of power which is what they focused on most of the three days.

>> Yep.

>> Watching it, Maya, I saw overwhelming evidence. As we are here with a few hours left to watch how the evidence unfolds, I do not see an overwhelming case and overwhelming evidence to support convicting on obstructing Congress. I’ll tell you why.

>> I was just going to ask. This is important. With any trial, one conviction would be enough. It would remove the president. On the obstruction of Congress what the Democrats are arguing is basically something that began three months before they actually voted to impeach should now be resolved by removal of the president. In every other case including Nixon we know the rule has been the president is allowed to fight within the law, is allowed to deny and, yes, quote, defy all the way up until the Supreme Court which takes often more than a year.

>> Right.

>> So is there enough evidence to convict on article two? I haven’t seen enough evidence.

>> My counter would be if they started in year one and it takes six years to get through the courts, does that mean they never get to bring an article of impeachment on obstruction?

>> Yeah.

>> Even when he says, “I’m not even going to look through the documents to determine whether any of them are appropriately withheld.” Because, remember, executive privilege is not a blanket privilege. It is not. Attorney/client privilege is not. Was there anyone subject to the privilege in the conversation? Were there facts in the document as opposed to deliberation, you are supposed to produce the facts. They didn’t even do that.

>> One potential answer — again, we are not talking about was Donald Trump wrong, was it bad for democracy for him to defy, I would say yes. But is it a removable high crime. Then I will bring in Claire who I see is chomping to get in.

>> I’m chomping.

>> I’m not talking about whether you like Donald Trump.

>> No, I understand.

>> But the argument would you want mcgahn, you need expedited review and argue it out. You want Bolton, you need expedited review. They were in such a rush to move, the Democrats in their brief cite Nixon and said he hid less and got impeached, but he didn’t get impeached for obstruction of Congress. There were three articles. It was abuse of rights, abuse of power and obstruction of justice, something the Democrats, Claire, left out even though it came up in the Mueller probe.

Evidence is beside the point for the Trump haters who want to see the 45th president thrown out of office just months before voters render their verdict on a second term. The digital mob quickly formed on Twitter under that hashtag #boycottarimelber. So far, there are no signs of a stake being erected outside the studios of MSNBC, but the hour is still early.

Credit: University of Toronto va Flickr