Yep. The GOP is making a play for dictatorship.
It's been going there for a while. Because it sees the numbers going away from it. Texas will fall to the Dems in the next decade. And then the apocalyptic, selfish-virtue politics of the Republican Party, which it sees as more important than democracy itself, will be over.
So the day has finally arrived for the plan to be expressed. A Republican president can coerce an ally with taxpayer money, in order to cheat the US election and benefit the enemy which helped win him the last one; and then defend himself by lies, obstruction and a claim of absolute power. And all of that isn't an impeachable offence.
Instead, the institution meant to guard against the abuse of power refuses to allow witnesses and documentary evidence in the president's trial. No one doubts the reason it has done so is to make a vote to extinguish the trial a formality. By this means, it will find the president not guilty, although by avoiding the evidence it denies the president exoneration.
And in doing so, it has granted powers to the executive which nullify the separate, but equal, powers of congress. Save a president, lose a republic.
Nothing now stops this president stuffing the ballot box, denying a contrary election result or refusing to step aside.
Nothing will persuade him to accept the decisions of the Supreme Court. Why should he? He can do no wrong, according to the Republican argument.
The rule of law in the US is over. Who can trust the result of the next election, if Trump claims to have won it?
The country is profoundly broken. The Constitution failed. If the city on a hill ever had a light, it just went dark. Tragic.