Protesters rally as Senate votes for no witnesses at impeachment "trial"

On the last day of January 2020, protesters rallied outside the US Capitol as Senators voted 51-49 mostly on party lines NOT to hear witness testimony, meaning the "trial" consists only of opening and (maybe) closing arguments.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi was quoted earlier in the day as saying "Trump will not be acquitted. You cannot be acquitted if you don't have a trial. And you don't have a trial if you don't have witnesses and documentation. She is correct, what is about to happen instead is that the defendent's co-conspirators are going to dismiss the charges.

Prior to the vote, one Senator remarked that this decision would "unleash a monster" then corrected himself to "monarch." Protesters mirrored this with remarks that Jan 31, 2020 would go down as the last day the United States was considered a democracy, saying it would be a fascist dictatorship going forward. Since fascism is generally considered to be to the left of monarchy(and that in turn left of theocracy), protesters outside were actually cutting Trump some slack compared to that Senator's speech.

Democrats expect to be able to delay an "acquital" of Donald Trump until after the Feb 4 State of the Union Address with procedural arguments, but that's it: Trump will have gotten away with holding another country's ability to win a defensive war hostage to force them to investigate a possible opponent in the 2020 election.