The seismic aftershocks of the Capitol insurrection, the most consequential single event in our history at least since 9/11, continue to reverberate, with no end in sight. The unprecedented second Trump impeachment has happened with lightning speed…you could have missed it if you blinked! And with all of 10 Republicans (OMG), significantly including third-ranking Liz Cheney, voting along with all Democrats, it was also the most bipartisan presidential impeachment ever! The debate was quite predictable, with outraged Democrats demanding accountability and many Republicans railing against Democrats on multiple fronts, including Trump’s usual “they’ve been out to get him since he was elected and they are at it again!” line. Multiple Republicans including leader McCarthy (who even admitted that Trump had culpability!) also blamed the Democrats for stoking division by pushing through this last minute impeachment rather than trying to come together and unite the country! This shameless hypocrisy came from many of the chief proponents (including McCarthy) of the Big Lie of massive election fraud that was responsible for much of the division which led to the insurrection in the first place, and who, even after the capital invasion, still voted to try to overturn the election results! If they REALLY wanted unity, it would be up to THEM to try to convince their base that the election was legitimate! Even that would be difficult as long as Trump insists otherwise!

It still remains to be seen when the article of impeachment will be sent to the Senate for trial, although the current rumor is sometime next week, since McConnell has blocked commencement of the trial before Inauguration Day. That would have been a bad idea anyway, since there is no way the trial could have concluded before the end of Trump’s term (and therefore potentially removed him from office early) and would have been in progress during Biden‘s inauguration. Also, it is certainly preferable to have the Democrats in charge of setting the rules for the trial. There are valid arguments on each side about whether to initiate the trial sooner or later, even much later, or even to never deliver the article for trial, which seems very unlikely. Even if the newly Democrat-controlled Senate is able to simultaneously handle the trial as well as the numerous new cabinet and other confirmations and critical legislation, it will inevitably both delay those processes and be a major distraction and contentious spectacle. The trial outcome is still very unlikely to be conviction, which would require 17 Republican plus all Democratic senators. But with McConnell making unofficial noises that he could be open to conviction, anything is possible. There is certain to be a cry by many GOP senators that the trial is illegitimate with Trump out of office. At least some of them will probably have their eyes more on the polls than on the arguments and evidence, to try to figure out whether they can vote to convict Trump and get away with it with their base.

Meanwhile, Trump‘s approval rating has plummeted to as low as 29% in one poll, including 70% among Republicans, which is still quite high, all things considered. Additionally, Trump has lost his main platforms of Twitter and Facebook, and his brand is taking a huge hit in the corporate world. It is still much too early to tell how this will play out in the future.

So in terms of degrading Trump and his current and future stranglehold on the GOP, the insurrection was a major coup, pun intended. But it has also stripped away the illusion of adequate security of our most important institutions and has revealed both the depth of division within our country and the prevalence of white supremacist and other radicalized right wing adherents and their willingness to resort to violence. Not surprisingly, as the investigations and arrests proceed, we are seeing that this includes lots of otherwise ordinary citizens as well as current and former members of police and fire departments, the Armed Forces and even government officials. It may even end up including members of Congress as accomplices when all the investigations are done! At least this has been a wake-up bullhorn for federal and state law enforcement agencies to finally take these threats seriously as we enter what may be a new era of resurgent domestic terrorism.

So in some ways the insurrection was actually beneficial, but will it end up having been worth the as yet unknown and possibly enormous cost to our democracy? Only time will tell. At least two things are certain: First, this absolutely appalling event has changed our nation forever, in ways and to an extent we still cannot predict. Second, the white supremacist and other right wing movements which were instrumental in perpetrating it and their followers are not going anywhere, even if they recede back into the shadows, where they will be even harder to find and root out! All this in the middle of a still worsening catastrophic pandemic! What next?!!