"Impeachment trials" are not really designed to be fair in the way actual trials are. They are legally designed to be a popularity contest among the legislature; hence why the Republican party was able to block it, and also why they would have been able to vote no if they had decided not to block it. Honestly, letting the term run out and having the president lose in a typical election is probably the least debatable way to change the president. There is some historical precedent for impeachments being used as political tools, while elections are wreathed in tradition and legitimacy.

> letting the term run out and having the president lose in a typical election is probably the least debatable way to change the president

Except that didn't work out, did it? Remember he was impeached for trying to cheat at an election. And people (lots of people) warned he'd continue on that path.

I mean, let's be honest: it would have been better in hindsight to have actually removed him from office.

Well, we're comparing reality, the case of a lost election, (thousands of protestors without broad support) to a counterfactual, the case of an impeachment (a million protestors? support from every Republican?).

I’m not sure what would even happen if the GOP voted to condemn their own president. To whom would frustrated GOP voters petition then? Would they fracture into a third party?

The reality nearest to our own where the impeachment attempt succeeded is the one where the Senate was D-majority that year. Only a few seats would have to be different for that, whereas the counterfactual of republicans voting against one of their own would require a shift in the very elements of politics. Imagine a world where a D-majority legislature impeached a Republican president. Instead of pointing to an election, Democrats would have to point to a 1000 page report that nobody wants to read. Republicans would be calling it a "political move" and the whole party would be unified against its fairness.

>I’m not sure what would even happen if the GOP voted to condemn their own president.

The GOP having had enough of GOP President Nixon that they were going to impeach and remove him is what led to him resigning first.

And the country got on just fine.

I'm not doubting they would've voted no even if they'd called witnesses and had a real trial. But (and this is speculation) there'd be a lot more people aware of Trump's corrupt conduct in office and he would've lost by a far larger margin.

Although...who am I kidding. The right-wing media would probably have covered the full impeachment trial in the same way they covered the House impeachment proceedings. Just play a silent video of politicians talking, and have their own pundits say "This is BS we won't even insult you by making you listen to it".

One of the articles of impeachment was on obstruction of justice. In a normal court that would have been open and shut. The White House was extraordinary and blatant with the obstruction. It was well documented. The conviction on the obstruction charge was voted down by an even larger margin than the collusion charge, which I thought was strange because thanks to all of the obstruction the hard evidence was a bit lacking. They had few documents to work with because the Trump Whitehouse explicitly refused to honor all of the subpoenas they were served.

Basically he knew that the Senate would cover for any crime so long as he delivered the votes, so he ran the place like a mob boss.

The other article of impeachment was on abuse of power, not collusion. It was a nice way of accusing Trump of extorting a bribe.