Jonathan Bernstein:

[T]o put it more or less as Schiff did: Will the U.S. wind up a stronger democracy after this trial — or a lesser one?

The answer to all those questions depends in part on how the public comes to understand what happened in 2019-2020. And that understanding will be, in part, created by what happens in the Senate right now, how it is reported, and how the citizenry reacts to it.