| As the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump winds down … Don't despair. As Trump appears almost certain to avoid conviction and disqualification, I've seen several liberals returning to the "nothing matters" fatalism that we've seen on and off over the last five years, with frequent mentions and updates of his boast that he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue without any consequences. C'mon. Trump, first of all, lost the election. By a fairly large margin, all things considered. Yes, if he had a relatively small number of votes in exactly the correct places, he could have pulled off a narrow electoral college win while losing the popular vote badly, but that's actually something of an illusion — as it was, Trump got a lot of Electoral College bang for his vote-total buck, and getting even more would have required either doing much better overall or really incredible luck. He also was (and still is) the only president of the polling era to spend his entire presidency with more people disapproving than approving of his job performance. He's the only president to be impeached twice. He's the only president to have a senator from his own party vote to convict him, and most likely he'll have another four to eight Republicans voting to convict this time. Yes, he's still popular within his party, but we've yet to see how much clout he'll have in the 2022 midterms, let alone the 2024 election. And he still has a ton of legal trouble he may or may not avoid. There are lots of reasons to be worried about the anti-democratic leanings of the Republican Party, but it's simply not true that Trump avoids consequences of his actions. Where are the witnesses? I thought the House managers and the Senate Democratic majority were making a big mistake by failing to take the time to gather testimony from witnesses before the trial — either in a special committee, or just by taking videotaped depositions as was done during Bill Clinton's impeachment trial. As it turned out, for the most part the evidence the managers presented was vivid and persuasive in most places. But there was one big exception: Trump's actions during the insurrection. For that, the managers had to rely on news sources that were neither convincing nor comprehensive. Did Trump really revel in the riot? To what extent was he involved in efforts to secure the Capitol? Did people have to work around him? I don't know if definitive answers to those questions would change anything, but in my view we don't have full answers to any of them. It's a real failure of what was otherwise a very good job by the House managers. That said: No senator has voted yet. Witnesses could still come forward on their own and provide news interviews, or even just on-the-record statements, of what they know. It sure seems to me that anyone with direct evidence, whether it helps or harms Trump, should spill the beans now. Those House Democrats. All of them have done well, with the three standouts being the lead manager, Maryland's Jamie Raskin; Colorado's Joe Neguse; and, from the Virgin Islands, Stacey Plaskett. As was the case in the first impeachment trial, the relatively recent additions to the Democratic caucus impressed. Neguse is in his second term, Raskin in his third, and Plaskett goes all the way back to 2015, so she's in her fourth term. The class of 2019, in particular, seems to be an impressive source of talent for the Democrats. Of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got all the attention at first, but Neguse is only one of a number of others who are off to good starts. Unfortunately, the still-ossified leadership and the centralization of authority within the House in the speaker's office give all these folks relatively little to do. The House really does need to revive their committees, and especially the subcommittees, to allow junior members a chance to do real legislating and oversight. If AOC is looking for a cause to champion for internal House reform, that would be a very good one. After all, they can't all count on presidential impeachments to get a little spotlight on them. 1. Frances Lee at the Monkey Cage on Republican congressional victories in 2020. 2. Meredith Conroy on Trump's and Biden's executive orders. 3. Jack Santucci on top-two and other nonpartisan two-round electoral systems. 4. Jennifer Bendery on what Republican senators are saying about why they will vote against conviction. 5. Kevin Drum on Fox News. 6. And my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Noah Smith on an aging U.S. | 
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