After the Impeachment Investigation, What Now?

"And you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend. You don't believe we're on the Eve of Destruction." (Barry McGuire's famous song, "Eve of Destruction" from the mid-Sixties.)

Things are looking bad, people. We've just concluded two weeks of Congressional testimony, during which six prominent, patriotic Americans testified, under penalty of perjury, that a grand conspiracy was conducted behind the walls of the White House, a conspiracy so sickening that many observers, including Watergate alums, John Dean and Carl Bernstein, have declared it to be "worse than Watergate."

The present Republican administration, it has been clearly shown, colluded to prevent an American ally, Ukraine, from receiving desperately needed assistance, until -- and unless -- it agreed to instigate a formal "investigation" into the supposed corruption of Trump political rival, Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The bribe was so blatant that these career officers were moved to object in the most public of ways, testifying to the House Intelligence Committee's Impeachment investigation.

Everything should be heading toward the trial and conviction of one Donald Trump in the Senate, right? Yet where does the country find itself, immediately after the testimony of, among others, a celebrated Lt. Col., a highly respected Russia expert, who was hired by the Trump administration to advise it on Russia matters, and even a Trump "donor" who was rewarded for his million dollar contribution to the Inaugural Committee with an Ambassadorship to the E.U.?

The nation is just as divided as before the hearings. Support for Impeachment has not increased but has gone down a few points, according to an Emerson College poll, conducted immediately after the hearings. Many of those questioned in the poll just don't seem to have a full understanding of what Trump's quid pro quo means to the presidency and to the nation.

What's going on here? Is no one paying attention?

The next few days and weeks will prove critical to the fate of the hearings and to the state of play in Washington. A nation asleep may not be able to change course once it decides to wake up. After the nightmare has gone down, sleep may be harder to come by. Or it may be impossible.