What can you say about Ted Cruz? Are there words that can capture how much a heartless lowlife he is? What is worse? Flying to Cancun in the middle of a catastrophe in his home state or peddling “The Big Lie” that the election was stolen?

Mitch is “disingenuous,” to steal Nancy Pelosi’s word, but his speech upon the conclusion of the Senate impeachment trial can only widen the split in the Republican Party.

House Managers once again were brilliant in their closing remarks. In stark contrast, Trump’s lawyer is trafficking in lies, invention, and false equivalencies. He’s also on behalf of Trump throwing Trump’s supporters under the bus.

I resisted saying this for a while, but it is hard not to acknowledge that a fascist movement of considerable scope and depth is now woven into very fabric of the country’s politics and led by an amoral, narcissistic leader, ready to use terror to achieve or maintain power. To make matters worse, this leader – Donald Trump – and his movement, even now after their storming of the capital, have their claws into one of the two major parties – the Republican Party. This marriage of a movement with a major party heightens the fascist danger considerably and obviously requires resistance. It was anything but a shotgun wedding though. In fact, it was a long time in the making.

For a half century, shredding democracy and democratic rights have been (and still remain) the GOP’s alpha and omega. Moreover, in recent years this assault on democracy turned into a compulsive addiction as party strategists, recoiling at the inexorable trend toward a majority minority society, came to the obvious conclusion that they could only count on the support of a minority of voters now and, all the more so, in the future. This reality (or nightmare) drove the Republican Party further to the political right, eventually making Trump’s takeover easier than most of us expected. Indeed, his unfiltered and strident message, combining white supremacy, xenophobia, misogyny, and complete contempt for democratic institutions, democratic rights, and a democratic culture, as candidate and then president, was embraced by the Grand Old Party with only a bit of dissent and that quickly disappeared. After all, the difference in messaging and aims between one and the other was never more than a matter of degree and brazenness.

The rejection of a multi-racial society, resting on equality, was at the heart of the worldview of both. For the moment we have the upper hand (not by much) in this existential struggle, and if we are smart, we will press our advantage. Go Joe, Kamala, and everyone who is on the side of decency, justice, equality, and social progress.

Nearly all the Republican Senators signed off on Trump’s unsuccessful attempt to overturn an election by force and violence. They sanctioned mob rule. If there is any doubt as to whose pulling the strings in the Republican Party, today’s vote by Senate Republicans settled that matter and revealed once again their political DNA.

Their politics are steeped in lies and disinformation – outright and unapologetic – and turn on undemocratic, white supremacist, minority rule, enforced where necessary by violence and bloodshed.

Today they heard compelling arguments from the Democratic House managers for an impeachment trial and impeachment, but those arguments landed on deaf ears.