The U.S. House of Representatives approved the guidelines for the next step in its impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump in a 232-196 vote.

The vote means that House democrats will be able to hold televised hearings in which they will seek to convince the public that Trump abused his power in his dealings with the Ukraine by asking them quid-pro-quo favors in investigating Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President and current democratic candidate for president Joe Biden.

The vote by the House walked pretty clearly on party lines with almost all democrats approving the guidelines and almost all republicans opposing it.

Regardless of where you sit on those party lines, we at The Daily Eastern News, feel that every American should pay very close attention to what happens next in the impeachment inquiry.

What happens next is going to carry with it an extremely high amount of historical significance no matter what the final result is.

Only two presidents have been impeached in the U.S., Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Johnson was acquitted in the Senate after being impeached in the House.

What is happening in the U.S. right now is incredibly rare, and the ramifications will surely be big not just in the 2020 election but also for many years moving into the future.

If democrats fail in their efforts to impeach Trump, it will deal a blow to the party’s credibility ahead of the 2020 election cycle as republicans will be able to spin the narrative that the whole inquiry was just a desperate attempt by democrats to remove the president.

If Trump is impeached however, the historical significance would need little explaining.

Not only would he be just the second president to be impeached from office for good, but the republican party would lose its nominee for the 2020 elections, thrusting the party into a hurried search and selection for a new candidate to combat a democrat with months of campaigning already under their belt.

This inquiry will also set a lot of precedent for future situations moving forward.

This case will set the tone for what sitting U.S. presidents are allowed to say and how they are allowed to interact with foreign countries while serving as president.

It was already admitted by Trump and his lawyer Rudolph Giuliani that Trump asked the Ukraine to look into Hunter Biden.

What is going to be heavily debated moving forward is whether or not that was an abuse of power by Trump and how that abuse of power would need to be treated.

Regardless of what happens, this impeachment saga will have a longstanding effect of American politics for many years to come, and all Americans, no matter what side of the aisle they reside on, should pay close attention to its details.

The Editorial Staff can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].