Trump not impeached yet

A Trump-hater law professor admits:

the traditional understanding of the impeachment power in the United States up until the early twentieth century was that the "impeachment" occurs when an authorized member of the lower chamber appears on the floor of the upper chamber and "impeaches" an officer by formally leveling an accusation and demanding a trial.

The House has not delivered any impeachment articles to the Senate. If it does not do it before Wednesday afternoon, it will be too late, according to a popular constitutional interpretation.

By delaying, the House Democrats are admitting that there is no urgency in getting Trump out of office, and all that talk about him being a threat to the republic was just political theater.

Maybe Nancy Pelosi is worried about being charged herself. It turns out that the FBI had info about an impending Capitol attack and alerted Congressional leaders, but not the President. So Pelosi may have acquiesced to the attack more than Trump.

Some polls say that Trump's popularity is down, but Rasmussen says it is slightly up.

Long term, opinion will be influenced by how the Biden administration performs, and how hard the right-wing gets punished for its views.

I predict that Biden will soon be seen as more authoritarian than Trump ever was. The NY Times reports already:

Biden Seeks Quick Start With Executive Actions and Aggressive Legislation

In an effort to mark a clean break from the Trump era, the president-elect plans to roll out dozens of executive orders in his first 10 days on top of a big stimulus plan and an expansive immigration bill.

So it will be an authoritarian first ten days.

AP reports:

Governors have declared states of emergency, closed capitols to the public and called up troops ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next week.

This seems alarmist to me. We are not in a civil war.