David Frum thinks Trump is toast:
Things will get worse for the 45th president. The 57-43 margin in the Senate flashes a green light to federal and state prosecutors that, if they find evidence of crimes, proceeding with legal action against Trump would be politically safe.
Trump also faces the prospect of civil actions by the families of those who lost their lives in the insurrection that he incited. If and when they sue, their attorneys cite what Senator Mitch McConnell said immediately after the trial vote. The Senate minority leader condemned Trump’s actions as a “disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty” and held Trump “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” McConnell continued:
<blockquote>The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instruction of their president. Having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the gowing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth. The issue is not only the president’s intemperate language on January 6 … it was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe, the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was somehow being stolen by some secret coup by our now president.</blockquote>
His own damning assessment did not suffice to persuade McConnell to convict Trump of impeachable offenses. That abdication will weigh on McConnell’s conscience and historical reputation.
But McConnell’s words on the record may well suffice in future civil proceedings to impose responsibility on Trump for the harm he did. If your loved ones were injured or killed on January 6, the leader of Trump’s party in the Senate just volunteered his video jury testimony about who might be held liable for your loss.
Even more significantly, McConnell reminded senators that the regular criminal law could deal with common criminals—as the Republican leader suggested Trump to be. Maybe McConnell was just emitting words, only maneuvering. But if federal and state law enforcement is pursuing Trump, today’s events will encourage it, not deter it.
If you looked to the U.S. Senate for a full measure of accountability, you did not receive it, of course. Donald Trump, the twice-impeached president, is also a twice-acquitted president. He lives in a palace on the sea, supported by unconstitutional emoluments from foreign governments, unethical payments from the U.S. Treasury to his businesses, and gullible donations from the suckers he duped. Almost half a million are dead from the plague he promised would go away by itself, even as he received the benefit of miracle treatments available only to the most favored few.
But if justice failed, democratic self-preservation is working. Trump lost the presidency, and that loss held despite all his attacks on the vote and the counting of the vote. His party split against him on this second round of impeachable offenses. He has lost his immunity to civil suit and his impunity against federal indictment.
The world is crashing upon his head.
I’ve heard that before …
However, it’s important for me not to become too pessimistic in order to save myself ffrom disappointment. It’s not good for my mental health. So, I am going to embrace this as one possibility going forward, and one that certainly is backed up by the fates of previous demagogues like Jospeh McCarthy and previous huckster phonies like Sarah Palin.
On the other hand, it’s also important to recognize that Donald Trump is not just either of those things. He is the leader of a full-fledged cult and I don’t know that it’s as ephemeral as people think. In fact,k I know it isn’t. That cult has been building for three decades. Trump just recognized it and claimed it as his own, he didn’t invent it. I could imagine that surviving two impeachments and pounding virtually the entire Republican party into submission has made him even more attractive to the Grievance Party.
I honestly don’t know which way it’s going to go.