An icy Saturday morning with the television tuned to the final chapter of a Senate impeachment trial can make for clarifying and compelling viewing.

The show is now over, and the verdict is in. Donald Trump remains disgraced, but he was acquitted in terms of this process.

Booyah for him. Booyah for a Republican Party that remains painfully, suicidally in his clutches. 

At the outset, let me own two strongly-held convictions.

First, we can argue about the merits of past impeachments. The 11 articles against Andrew Johnson can be written off to the mess of post-Civil War Reconstruction. Yes, Bill Clinton’s impeachment was about perjury, but it was also about consensual sex; albeit with quite an imbalanced power dynamic and clearly constituting harassment or worse by any more contemporary standard.

Trump’s first impeachment was a more partisan affair borne out of the dispatched president’s ham-handed, grossly imperfect attempt to leverage a foreign country for his personal, political gain.

In my view, this one was different. This one was black and white, lacking ambiguity or shades of gray. This one, most definitely, was a high crime and misdemeanor.

If incitement of an insurrection against the governing structures of one’s own country is not grounds for impeachment, then exactly what is? That was the essence of the case. Everything else, including the so-called jurisdictional issues on which Mitch McConnell hung his hat, as well as First Amendment claims and nonsensical talk of “cancel culture,” was just commentary.

Few rail against “cancel culture” any more than yours truly. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that it was Donald Trump who endeavored to “cancel” a duly-held, duly-decided, duly-adjudicated and duly-certified election.

Second, there have been no shortage of suggestions that the trial itself was divisive; that a new president had taken office, as Constitutionally prescribed, and it was time to move on.

There is no doubt that the country needs to heal. As a confirmed centrist, this is a guiding belief on my part. However, unity is not the antithesis of accountability. Rather, a measure of accountability is required if there is truly to be a turning of the page.

In the aftermath of JFK’s assassination, America badly needed a healing balm. But it also needed a full accounting of what had tragically transpired. Hence, the Warren Commission.

While not inferring equivalence, rarely has the world called out more for a salve than in the immediate wake of Nazi atrocities. But that difficult healing and reconciliation was not to the exclusion of accountability. Rather, it was predicated upon it. Hence, the Nuremberg trials.

With respect to the theater we just witnessed, it was hardly a fair fight from a lawyering point of view. The House impeachment managers, including two of Colorado’s own, made their case admirably and with precision. On the other side, if I ever find myself in Philadelphia with a whiplash claim, I will sure know who to call. But in this limelight and with these stakes, Trump’s defense attorneys were badly out-matched and out-classed.

The precipitous decline in the legal talent available to the former President is a clear indicator of his diminished stature. This was a Double-A team, at best, but all Trump could enlist given his unforgivable conduct and political fall.

If there is one criticism of the case presented by the House Managers, it is that they went heavy on the personal pathos of lives lost, grievous injuries suffered and physical damage to our hallowed Capitol. All tragic and all condemnable. But in putting the emphasis there, short shrift was perhaps given to the very nature of “insurrection” itself.

This was not some run-of-the-mill riot, even one with significant casualties. This was nothing less than the incitement of a concerted, long-in-the-works effort to overturn the Constitutional order and to negate the peaceful transfer of power. For people who preach “American exceptionalism,” they saw fit to attack the essence of what makes the country exceptional.

In plain English, it was an attempted coup. That should have been the central thrust. If that doesn’t merit impeachment and conviction, then what is the utility of the impeachment clause?

But the legal mismatch, trial tactics, artful wordsmithing and video editing was of limited consequence in the final analysis. The result was precooked and preordained.

Seven Senate Republicans distinguished themselves by putting honor before party. Compared to the Clinton impeachment and the first Trump one, that is a notably high rate of party crossover. But it was still far short of the number needed for conviction. And even further shy of what the offense demanded.

Of these seven Republicans, three (Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney) have never been part of the Trump army and have the political clout at home to pull if off; one (Ben Sasse) has a different sense of duty and a longer vision; and two (Richard Burr and Pat Toomey) are retiring and need not worry about a Trump-inspired primary challenge.

All deserve major credit. But that leaves Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) as the most courageous profile, representing a solidly red state and not having been considered a likely Trump defector at the beginning.

Also on that list, of course, is our neighboring Congresswoman to the north, Rep. Liz Cheney of deeply red and rural Wyoming. Her short-term politics may be complicated. But five years from now, she will look prescient and even more heroic.

For now, this remains Donald Trump’s Republican Party. More accurately, as evidenced by 43 senators determined to look away, it is a party quite ready to assign Trump to the past tense, but living in mortal fear of his ever-loyal, ever-amped-up base.

No matter that such loyalty is a one-way street with Trump always willing, sometimes eager, to walk away from those on his front lines.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. Reach him at EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann on Twitter. Read his other columns here.