1) Yesterday's consensus: We must impeach Trump immediately because we cannot survive another twelve days with him in office.

2) Today's consensus: We must impeach Trump even though the Senate trial will take place after he leaves office.

These are very different arguments...

I actually have more sympathy for 2) than for 1)

It a) somewhat increases the chances of getting the necessary majority, b) could make sure he can't run again; c) creates accountability, and d) ensures that he leaves office because of a lost election, not impeachment.

2) Also has important disadvantages though:

It would a) slow the passage of urgent legislation & key appointments, b) give Trump the attention he craves to stay relevant, and c) may be thrown out by SCOTUS since it's disputed whether you can impeach officials who've left office.

I'm still making my mind up about the wisdom of 2).

But it's worth noting that, by switching from 1) to 2), a lot of people have implicitly retracted their main argument for why we must immediately impeach—that we simply can't tolerate another 12 (or now 11) days of Trump.

In any case, the main point I made in yesterday's article was that there's no realistic prospect for removing Trump from office before January 20th, and that trying to do so was therefore a bad idea.

That's, um, kinda the premise of today's consensus. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/just-run-out-clock-trump/617606/