As Democrats dominated House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump a few days before Christmas, the division within US polity has intensified. Even the voting pattern was partisan and showed that Republicans and Democrats congressmen taking clear sides and stance.

We had argued in our previous deliberations that Trump’s style of governance and his treatment of US establishment would not augur well for US democracy and its established systems. Trump is a volcano who has fought his more than 3000 cases in US courts with tenacity and bullheadedness.

The procedure to oust a sitting president is quite long winding and complicated, while the impeachment by House of Representatives has put moral pressure on Trump, which he will never take, there are many stages to cover.

The Guardian newspaper report published on 19 Dec highlights those steps and procedures:

The first step would be the selection of impeachment managers; The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, must settle on a team, known as “impeachment managers”, to make the case against Trump in a Senate trial to begin next month. Prime candidates are Adam Schiff, the intelligence committee chair, and Jerry Nadler, the judiciary chair. Another name to have been floated: Justin Amash, the Michigan independent who broke with the Republican Party over Trump. His presence on the slate would confer some bipartisan credibility on the Democrats’ case.

This will be followed by the Referral of impeachment to the Senate. The transfer of impeachment from the House to the Senate is expected to happen in short order. But some Trump critics have urged Pelosi to consider not transferring the case immediately to the Senate, where the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has made clear his wishes to dismiss the case without calling witnesses. But with Democrats mostly arguing that the impeachment case is urgent in order to stop Trump from striking again, stalling on the transfer could be difficult to justify.

Finally, there is to be a formal Senate trial. Mitch McConnell has said that the Senate would host a trial in January on whether to convict and remove Trump from office, as prescribed in the constitution. But McConnell and the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, have staked out opposing positions on the terms of the trial, including what witnesses will be called and evidence admitted. There is a bare-bones set of rules governing the process, but most of the substance is up for negotiation. The Supreme Court’s chief justice, John Roberts, is to preside at the trial and could rule to break certain logjams – or he might not.

A two-thirds majority of senators would be required to remove Trump from office. That’s not likely to happen, given Republicans’ 53-seat majority and senior party figures’ public statements that they plan on acquitting Trump.

Although Trump may be able to parry the Impeachment process; the mere fact that House of Representatives has impeached him will have domestic and International fall out on functioning and decision making of the White House and the Hill.

Domestically the gulf between both camps will be widened; media will run juicy campaigns and mudslinging will keep the American polity charged and divided. Already the Social Media space has been saturated with Trump impeachment, and twitter trend on Trump had crossed 4 million tweets in the morning of 20 Dec. Sitcoms and Political comedy shows will have nothing but Trump, and the American public will be affected by a chaotic environment.

Internationally, the impeachment is a big setback to American prestige and democracy, and US clout will get damaged. Likely questions to be raised are:

Why is American democracy so fragile, where the two major pillars of the state are in a collision course, and the leadership in the White House, as well as the Hill, is selfishly grinding their own axe, disregarding American prestige in comity of nations?

How can America provide leadership to her allies and friends, when her leadership is in a perpetual state of crises? The world moves on and cannot give time to the American leadership to settle their scores. The international system cannot remain frozen and wait for the dust to settle in Washington.

How can an impeached president of the United States conduct business as usual and interact with world leaders in different forums, with a piece of mind, when he has been discredited by his own House of representatives. The impeachment proceedings and hearing in judicial committee were marred by mudslinging on President Trump in the       Ukrainian deal. They drew a lot of ire of Ukrainian and Russian Federation, how can American leadership conduct its business with friends and foes.

The impeachment will definitely affect next elections, where a bruised and battered Trump will have to face the public in election campaign and media debates, watched by millions of Americans and billions of people across the globe; the hardened stance of both camps will leave very less room for objective debate on burning issues confronting America, will the barbershop gossip replace the objective debate that is traditionally done by candidates for the most powerful office in the world?

Although the Democrats have an upper edge in perception domain after impeachment, they have to sift a presidential candidate from the platoon of current candidates, which will drag the debate till mid of next year, can Trump exploit this division and bounce back?

In a nutshell, the Impeachment of Trump on 19 Dec has turned the coming Christmas into a sombre occasion, at least for the Republican voters and Donald Trump, he is Home Alone. He needs some morale-boosting steroids to celebrate the New Year.