Chris

That depends what you believe the Dems’ goal was. For sure they will have hoped to convict him and they didn’t, so they lost on that count, however they will have known all along that getting 17 GOP senators to back them was a tall order and will no doubt have been satisfied to achieve any number of other objectives.

For a start, history will record that Donald J Trump is the only president of the United States ever to have been impeached twice. As no president has ever been convicted by the senate, impeachment by Congress is the only “official” record of a sitting president’s misdemeanours. That’s a pretty big blot on his record that won’t ever fade, unless in the long run a series of presidents do actually get convicted of anything, at which point mere impeachment will cease to seem important. So the Dems haven’t really lost on that.

Secondly their presentation in the senate, complete with all the new CCTV footage, was really shocking and whether or not it is directly associated with Trump, it is associated in the minds of many American voters with an attempt by insurrection to prevent a president-elect from taking office. As it was a Democrat president-elect, the insurrection taints the reputation of republicans (even though the vast majority of American Republican voters would not have supported this in any way). So again, they have a win there.

I think the final analysis won’t be possible until the primaries begin for 2024. At that point we will be able to see what state the Trump wing of the GOP is in, and whether there is any appetite in the party for Trump or his anointed successor to have a run at the presidency.