I think you've just seen the playbook for future presidents.

Don't ever give them anything because you saw what happened to Nixon.

He was forced to resign.

Trump, look at the way he played it.

He just refused.

He refused to recognize a co-equal branch of government.

And he prevailed.

That's the way you win.

Hi, and welcome back to Amicus. This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law, the Constitution, the rule of law, impeachment. And I guess maybe now

the wheels finally coming off constitutional democracy as we know it. I'm Dahlia Lithwick. I cover

all those things, except perhaps the last, for Slate. And where you are right now, it's probably,

possibly Saturday morning, but where I am right now,

it's actually Friday afternoon. That means that we are in the middle still in my head

of an historic impeachment trial in the Senate, which may or may not actually be over by the time

this show turns up in your feeds. Let's just briefly adapt the Chinese blessing slash

curse. May we all live in fractionally less interesting times. So, okay, tomorrow Sunday,

we're going to be bringing you the promised second episode of our huge five-part election

meltdown series. That's the one we're doing in tandem with Professor Rick

Hassan and his election meltdown book. Now, we're bringing you election meltdown in no small

part because we believe associating ourselves with the remarks of Senator Lamar Alexander on

Thursday that whatever happens at this point in the Senate is just for show,

real change is going to have to happen in November at the ballot box.

...