Attention to the Unseen

Dahlia Lithwick writes: [B]eyond the political message that House impeachment managers and Senate Democrats will convey at trial—that Republicans have opted, once again, to be the party of Trump and violent incitement and that his efforts to overturn both the vote and the Constitution are just fine—there is another vitally important message that will be conveyed this week, no matter the outcome. That message is less a political signal about the difference between the two parties so much as it…

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Politico reports: Three weeks ago may have been the nadir of Donald Trump’s political influence. A meager crowd of supporters gathered to send him off to Florida, he’d lost access to Twitter and the Senate’s most powerful Republican, Mitch McConnell, seemed fully prepared to ghost him out of the party. Now, heading into what could have been an historic bipartisan rebuke, the former president and his team are confident both of his acquittal and that he’ll come out of the…

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Time reports: “Let these investigations go forward,” Rudy Giuliani told the presidential headquarters in Kyiv, Ukraine, his voice turning impatient. “Get someone to investigate this.” On the other end of the line, hunched over a speakerphone, two Ukrainian officials listened in disbelief as Giuliani demanded probes that could help his client, then-President Donald Trump, win another term in office. The 40-minute call, a transcript of which was obtained by TIME, provides the clearest picture yet of Giuliani’s attempts to pressure…

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Chris Hayes writes: The Republican Party is radicalizing against democracy. This is the central political fact of our moment. Instead of organizing its coalition around shared policy goals, the GOP has chosen to emphasize hatred and fear of its political opponents, who—they warn—will destroy their supporters and the country. Those Manichaean stakes are used to justify every effort to retain power, and make keeping power the GOP’s highest purpose. We are living with a deadly example of just how far…

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Renato Mariotti writes: House impeachment managers are starting Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial with the odds stacked against them. The jury has already indicated how it will vote, with 45 Republican Senators suggesting that the charge of inciting insurrection should have been dismissed before trial. To pull out a win, House impeachment managers will need to take some risks and shake things up in this week’s impeachment trial. Any good trial lawyer knows that when you’re behind, you have to…

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The Observer reports: The volume of exports going through British ports to the EU fell by a staggering 68% last month compared with January last year, mostly as a result of problems caused by Brexit, the Observer can reveal. The dramatic drop in the volume of traffic carried on ferries and through the Channel tunnel has been reported to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove by the Road Haulage Association after a survey of its international members. In a letter to…

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Molly Ball reports: A weird thing happened right after the Nov. 3 election: nothing. The nation was braced for chaos. Liberal groups had vowed to take to the streets, planning hundreds of protests across the country. Right-wing militias were girding for battle. In a poll before Election Day, 75% of Americans voiced concern about violence. Instead, an eerie quiet descended. As President Trump refused to concede, the response was not mass action but crickets. When media organizations called the race…

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