Impeachment: In conclusion …

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When historians tell the story of [President Donald] Trump's legacy of weakening the Constitution, they will now include the House's response. That matters. The Constitution is not the dead hand of the past. It is a living tradition whose meaning evolves in real time, and is affected by what today's constitutional actors say it means.

See "Trump impeachment is a shot in the arm for the Constitution."

Once again, the House has made a notch in history. What's different this time, however, is that no one really believes anything will change as a result.

See "Impeachment is different this time, but the script is already written."

Trump may be only the third president impeached, but now that [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and her Democrats have set the bar so low, pushing impeachment along party lines, other presidents will be impeached, and soon.

It won't be about profiles in courage. It'll be about one thing: power.

In short, when critical female swing voters get a full dose of Trump and the conduct he inspires, I suspect it reminds them why they sent Democratic members of Congress to the Capitol to restrain him. It impresses on them why they must vote next November for whoever has a "D" next to his or her name no matter what. That's the only way to make the Republicans stop and just go away.

See "What the most important voting block saw in the impeachment spectacle."

So far, the outcome of impeachment has been a distracted president and things mostly not getting dramatically worse in foreign policy. There are worse outcomes.

See "So how is the game theory of impeaching Trump working out?"

[Barack] Obama was among our most autocratic presidents, especially when you consider how he also set records for new liberty-shriveling regulations, but I am not saying he should have been impeached. I am saying that some of his offenses were as bad as Trump's.