Quick take (for real this time... maybe): Presidents aren't above the law. There is no law.

 As we prepare for the second acquittal of Donald J. Trump by the rigged jury of the US Senate, a few comments are in order.  Blah, blah, nation of laws, blah, blah, not a nation of men.

Presidents are above the law.  (Oops.)  They just are.  The probability of Donald Trump's Senate conviction has always been precise, mathematical zero.  The probability that he will ever be convicted in any criminal court, for anything, is precise, mathematical zero.  Yes, he actually, literally can personally shoot someone.  Cut out the middle men.  He could personally hold a gun to your face, pull the trigger, kill you while laughing, on national tv, and he'd get away with it.  Why?

Because most of a political party says so.  Not all.  Liz Cheney and a few others.  But as long as most of a political party says that Donald J. Trump is a living god whose actions are definitionally right, he will never be punished for anything ever.  As far as criminal law goes, I have already explained to you that the GOP is basically right on speech and incitement here.  Trump's impeachment defense relies significantly on a metaphorical interpretation of words like "fight," when he also told the protesters to express their opinions "peacefully," and yes, he used that word.  Morally, does that exonerate him in the full context of his inflammatory lies?  No.  Legally, must it?  Yes.  But this isn't a criminal trial.  It is an impeachment trial, and the question is whether or not he has crossed the line for a president, which he clearly has.

In a criminal trial, I'd be taking his side, and so should you.  This just isn't a criminal trial.

It was, in my opinion, a mistake to impeach without anything about the Georgia call, where Trump's conduct more clearly crossed a legal line, attempting to suborn election fraud.  He has committed a lot of crimes.

For which he will never pay a price.  Because an entire party says so, save that walking badass, Liz Cheney.

This is not a failure of institutions.  It is a demonstration of the nonexistence of institutions.  In 2012, one of the pseudo-scandals Democrats tried to invent about Mitt Romney was about "corporations."  I hate the left.  Corporations must exist, for reasons I will not explain today.  However, Democrats tried to make hay of Romney's comment, "corporations are people, my friend."

Unclutch those pearls.  Corporations are soylent green.  They are made out of people.  Like Big Bill Broonzy said, all music is folk music.  I never heard a horse sing a song.  And I've never seen a bunch of horses sign incorporation documents.  You know who does?  People.  Corporations are, like soylent green, made out of people.

As are all institutions.  They only follow rules when people do.

What I'm getting at here is an old fight in political science, and oh, fuck, I just typed the word, "fight," but moving on, the fight was been the institutionalists and the behavioralists.  Study the institution as the unit of analysis, or people, through psychology and sociology?  Eventually, the "behavioralist revolution," as it came to be called, incorporated economics, which is my approach, but this was the fundamental conflict in political science back in the '60s.

And what we are seeing is that institutions-- be they parties, Congress, the legal system... whatever-- ignore rules according to the strategic and semi-strategic preferences of whoever holds power, whoever holds office, and whoever used to hold office.

No president can ever be impeached for anything.  Presidents aren't above the law.  There is no law.  No such thing.  It doesn't exist.  Why not?  Rules only exist as long as both parties consent to the existence of rules.

One of our two parties does not consent to rules or law.

Us = fucked.  See?  Math is easy!