I saw the worst minds of my generation destroyed by madness

Valhalla burns. Photo by Bill Cooper, BBC.

China quarantines entire cities to contain the spread of the new coronavirus. But after the first day of impeachment question-and-answer, it’s a wonder the world hasn’t banned travel by Senate Republicans to stop the spread of whatever brain-eating virus they are carrying.

Alan Dershowitz rode into the Senate on a pale horse Wednesday, and with him, pestilence. Forget Richard Nixon, the plumbers and Watergate. In the new dispensation — in the reign of Donald John Trump — all that is a bygone era. All things are clean to the man who thinks banning bribery is “unfair.” Trump must be acquitted. Actions he takes in furtherance of extending his monarchy cannot be impeachable.

Thus sayeth the prophet.

“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” Dershowitz argued.

Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz: "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment." https://t.co/jKErQcS1Iy pic.twitter.com/zo4rL6Zbla — ABC News (@ABC) January 29, 2020

“That would allow a president to do literally anything and destroy re-elections as a check on presidential behavior,” former U.S. solicitor general Neal Katyal told an MSNBC panel:

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley law school, said he thought Dershowitz’s argument was “absurd and outrageous.” “It means that a president could break any law or abuse any power and say that it was for the public interest because the public interest would be served by his or her election,” he said.

Trump’s defense team argued seeking the truth from witnesses such as former national security adviser John Bolton would be too burdensome on the Senate to undertake. As they argued, support among GOP senators for hearing witnesses receded a day after it seemed to be rising. Trump aides circulated a letter on Capitol Hill that informed Bolton the White House “was moving to block publication of his forthcoming book.” In it, Bolton reportedly claims Trump tied releasing military aid to Ukraine to officials there investigating political rival Joe Biden.

White House Deputy Counsel Patrick Philbin twisted reason into fantastical shapes worthy of Reed Richards. Even if the president had a corrupt personal motive for withholding military aid to Ukraine, any coexisting public purpose excused his actions.

But robbing a convenience store to feed your children, is in no way acceptable under the U.S. code of laws, former Sen. Claire McCaskill(?) told MSNBC viewers.

The president’s lawyers argued even soliciting and accepting opposition research from foreign governments is acceptable in one nation under Trump.

It’s all out in the open now.



The President’s counsel just argued that there is nothing wrong with any candidate for office soliciting dirt on their opponents from foreign countries.



They’re not even trying to fake it anymore. — Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 30, 2020

Windsor Mann of USA Today and The Week tweeted, “Question for GOP senators: If you don’t want a fair trial, why should anyone think you want a fair election?

Even as they warned the impeachment set a bad precedent for the future, Trump’s defenders tore at the foundations of the present in attempting to render meaningless any oversight of a Republican president. No one need guess that their enthusiasm for oversight will return with a literal vengeance the moment a Democrat wins the presidency. Just as surely as their concern for budget deficits is reborn.

Everything is being put in place for Wall Street, The Chamber of Commerce and the GOP to pivot to full deficit panic and calls for the austerity THE DAY AFTER a Dem is elected. Mark it. https://t.co/5oeShxGlu0 — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 28, 2020

Never Trumper George Will argued in the Washington Post that acquittal for Trump and his inevitable “vindication tour” does not mean the impeachment effort was in vain. Will writes, “[T]here is more utility than futility in the impeachment trial. Because of it, this year’s electorate will have pertinent information. And future presidents will have a salutary wariness.” Even if acquittal simply emboldens this president. That’s not very comforting.

If only there had been singing and costumes Wednesday, America might have been watching a production of “Götterdämmerung.” The GOP is determined to burn the republic to the ground in Trump’s name. No distortion of reason, nor of law or the Constitution, is too low. Republicans have lased themselves to Trump and will see the country destroyed before they risk losing power. Yesterday they were dancing in the flames.

Charlie Pierce has long joked that Republicans are afflicted en masse with prion disease.

Meanwhile, Trump supplicant, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, is suing an imaginary cow.

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