The video was 13 minutes long, but it looked like three hours.
The montage showed the attack on the Capitol from different angles.
First, Donald Trump's incendiary speech on that fateful January 6th: "Fight to the last!" Then the mob's reaction: "Fuck these pigs!" Then the cries of pain from the parliamentary police.
Finally, the panic in the eyes of MPs fleeing Trump's crowds.
That's how emotional he began, the second impeachment trial against Trump.
The horror of the Capitol Storm was more than a month ago, an eternity in today's news cycle.
But the pictures that the Democrats presented to the Senate on Tuesday opened the wounds again.
They made it clear how serious the situation in the Capitol was - and how close the US escaped a catastrophe.
Nonetheless, the result of this unusual, retroactive impeachment process is clear: Trump, who spurred the pack on with his lies and hate speech, will probably get away with it again.
Most Republicans have chosen to absolve him of sedition charges - although in this case they are not only the jurors, but the victims of the act.
Some ostentatiously ignored the video and slipped behind their wooden desks.
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Trump impeachment number two: Democratic prosecutors on their way to the Senate
Photo: ALEXANDER DRAGO / REUTERS
Three weeks after floating off to Florida for retirement, Trump is once again making headlines in Washington.
Many Americans had already got used to his absence, to his silence on Twitter, to the stressed normalcy in the White House of his successor Joe Biden.
Death and an attempted coup
We have seen a lot since Trump appeared on the political stage.
But the scenes from early January remain unprecedented - as unprecedented as the fact that Trump was the first president in American history to be charged twice.
Some of my colleagues can hardly believe that they have now witnessed not one but two impeachments.
For me it's the third: in early 1999, I reported on the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton.
At the time, it was not about inciting a revolt, but about sex and perjury.
Clinton had lied under oath about his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky;
Special Counsel Ken Starr's report was 450 pages full of slippery detail.
The Democrats acquitted Clinton with the support of ten Republicans.
This time, it will take at least 17 Republican senators to convict them to end Trump's political future once and for all.
Because that's the only point of this process, since Trump was voted out of office anyway.
And yet this is not an idle show trial: A reconstruction and reappraisal of January 6th is unavoidable - because without a debate about who is responsible for this traumatic day, how the situation could escalate and who despite everything is still dealing with the ex -President in solidarity, the country cannot close this gloomy Trump chapter.
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Trump attorney Bruce Castor
Photo: US Senate Tv Via Cnp / imago images / ZUMA Wire
The first day of the process in the Senate was marked by constitutional fundamental questions: Can a president who is no longer in office even go through the impeachment process?
No, argued Trump's attorneys David Schoen and Bruce Castor, two obscure lawyers who ran at the last minute.
Your plea seemed ill-prepared even for well-meaning viewers - so bad that Trump, who was watching the hearing from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, is said to have been beside himself.
Even if he is acquitted in the Senate, that is a bad omen for possible further proceedings.
Is he running out of lawyers who still want to defend him?
"I don't know what he's doing," groaned even star lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a Trump buddy, on the right-wing TV station Newsmax, when Castor conjured up the downfall of antiquity in his rambling appearance.
The majority of the Senate rejected the motion and declared the procedure to be constitutional.
The Democrats' chief prosecutor, Congressman Jamie Raskin, didn't just make fellow party members cry.
The day before the attack, he buried his 25-year-old son, Tommy, who had committed suicide.
Raskin's two other children had been to the Capitol on January 6th.
"They thought they were going to die," said Raskin tearfully.
“Senators, this can't be our future.” You can see Raskin's entire, oppressive speech here.
But Washington is a cynical place and Congress may be the most cynical of them all.
It is not feelings and morals that count here, but the calculation of one's own election success.
Trump's electorate continues to have power over the Republicans, even if he is no longer president, his supporters sit in the ranks of Congress.
The Senate verdict is expected early next week.
An acquittal, which everyone in Washington expects, would have long-term consequences for democracy: It could inspire further acts of violence - and form the basis for a comeback Trump.
The crisis of meaning in the right-wing media
January 6th also turned the conservative US media world upside down: Fox News is slipping from the right edge to the center, while other niche channels such as OAN or Newsmax are drifting to the right.
This is also due to the fact that the voting machine manufacturers Dominion and Smartmatic have filed two billion lawsuits against the spreaders of the Trump lie about election fraud.
Fox News and its most prominent moderators are affected, as well as Trump's lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
Fox News denied the allegation: It was proud of its coverage.
CEO Lachlan Murdoch, the eldest son of Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, assured on Tuesday that the course would not be changed.
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Under pressure: Cable broadcaster Fox News
Photo: EDUARDO MUNOZ / REUTERS
But as a precaution, sister broadcaster Fox Business quickly removed its top presenter Lou Dobbs, the most committed of all Trump propagandists.
However, Dobbs won't have to look long for a replacement job.
Newsmax has already offered him a job.
The station hopes to benefit from the crisis of the others: The ratings of Fox News have crashed since the election and especially since the attack on the Capitol.
Some of the viewers are apparently no longer interested in the Trump Show - others, Fox News is no longer radical enough.
The appointments of the week
Joe Biden is not confused by the drama.
He is largely staying away from the impeachment debates and is pushing his surprisingly progressive agenda, including his $ 1.9 trillion aid package against the corona crisis, including a doubling of the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour, to alleviate rampant hunger Combat USA.
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Oval Office Round: Biden, Vice President Harris, and Treasury Secretary Yellen
Photo: CARLOS BARRIA / REUTERS
On Tuesday next week, Biden will also face his first TV town hall as president: In Wisconsin, he will answer live questions from CNN star Anderson Cooper and US citizens.
It is Biden's first business trip to another state since he took office.
The social media moment of the week
Because of Corona, almost all public life in the USA is currently via video chats.
A Texas District Court, the 394th Judicial District Court, was in session on Tuesday. Prosecutor Rod Ponton was unable to turn off the cat filter on his computer - and appeared in court as a talking cat.
"I'm live here, I'm not a cat," the cat, aka Ponton, insisted.
"I can see that," said Roy Ferguson, the judge.
The problem was solved quickly, but the clip spread rapidly on the Internet.
Our US stories of the week
I would like to recommend these stories to you:
Interview with Washington Post editor-in-chief Martin Baron: "We should have addressed Trump's lies more openly earlier"
Impeachment proceedings against Trump: The attempted coup file
New, left-wing US domestic policy: Comrade Biden
I wish you a pleasant week!
Heartily
your
Marc Pitzke
Icon: The mirror
