Where I continue to ponder the impeachment process

The impeachment process is a political process, much like any other trial. Both sides are going to spin the facts as suits them best. It will be a spin contest, but out of that contention the rest of us may be able to achieve some clarity.

Some say the impeachment process is a coup attempt orchestrated by the president's opposition. This may be the case, but the president's allies in the House and Senate are not powerless. If it truly is a coup attempt, they should be able to muster the evidence, at least enough evidence to prevent Republicans in the Senate from voting in favor of removal. The impeachment process is simply the venue for both sides to make their case.

I personally would rather it hadn't reached this point, but here we are. The effect all this will have on the electoral process is of course hard to say. Some predict it will destroy Trump, others that it will greatly strengthen him in the end, backfiring on the Dems. If by early next year it the process has brought to light serious malfeasance on the part of the president, the Republican establishment may turn their backs on him and begin looking for an alternative  My wild prediction is that next November the choice will be between Warren and Pence.

Meanwhile, it's worth pondering Hamilton's words from Federalist #65:

A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.