This week, the process of impeaching President Trump entered the critical phase as the House of Representatives held its first public hearings. The battle lines are now drawn.

The Democrats say that there is compelling evidence that Trump withheld badly needed military aid to an ally at war to pressure that country's government to provide him with personal political benefit by helping him discredit a political rival.

The Republicans say that the evidence comes mainly from witnesses with little or no direct contact with the president, and that the military aid was delivered to Ukraine without the Ukrainian president taking the actions Trump is alleged to have demanded.

The big picture: In coming days and weeks, there will be much public discussion of new details in the investigation and of unfamiliar characters in this drama. It will be easy to become lost in the weeds.

Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind as we try to separate what matters from what doesn't.

The drama now unfolding on American television is part of a political process, not a legal one. This oft-repeated phrase reminds us that words like extortion, bribery, obstruction, and crimes will be determined not by judges but by lawmakers who answer to voters. The question of whether to remove the president from office will be decided by political calculation of costs and benefits.

Democrats hold a majority in the House of Representatives, and they see political benefit in voting to impeach the president. Republicans control the Senate. They do not see political benefit in removing the president from office. That's why the House remains likely to impeach the president, and the Senate remains highly unlikely to convict him.

Wildcards? Are there developments that could alter this very basic analysis of political reality?

• Some have argued that if the evidence presented by Democrats proves compelling enough to significantly change public attitudes about President Trump, Senate Republicans may abandon him.
• That scenario becomes more likely if Democrats gain access to headline-making new evidence of presidential misconduct. For example, some point to the possibility of access to files of Trump's calls with other world leaders, including Russia's President Vladimir Putin.
• There has even been speculation that Republican Senators might seek political safety by agreeing to vote by secret ballot on whether to remove Trump from the White House.

All these scenarios remain unlikely.

• By historical standards, President Trump's approval ratings have proven remarkably stable. Perhaps that's because conservatives and liberals in the United States get their news from cable channels and websites that align with their political views. Whatever the cause, the dramatic events of the past three years have done little to change public perception of Trump.
• Any damning new evidence, if it exists, is unlikely to surface soon, because the president can pursue legal action to delay its release. Democrats want the impeachment process finished before the 2020 election campaigns move into high gear.
• Republicans know that many voters will see any move to hold a final vote on Trump's fate in secret as an act of political cowardice. They also know the vote wouldn't remain secret for long. Those who vote to support Trump will say so publicly; it won't be difficult to match final vote totals with the number of Republican senators who refuse to say how they voted. Thus, there's no political safety in this strategy.

The bottom line: The fate of Donald Trump will likely remain in the hands of American voters, not their elected officials. And the outcome of the next election is still more likely to be determined by the Democrats' choice of a presidential candidate, the state of the US economy in 2020, and the enthusiasm that each side's voters feel about the election than by anything now happening under the klieg lights in congressional hearing rooms.

In the latest episode, Ian sits down with 2020 Democratic presidential contender Andrew Yang. The entrepreneur and son of Taiwanese immigrants is best known for his "Freedom Dividend," a universal basic income plan that's the cornerstone of his campaign. Yang spoke candidly about Michael Bloomberg, just days after the former mayor entered the race, questioning the impact his ad spending may have on the other candidates. Watch that clip now, and watch the whole episode on your public television station beginning today. Check local listings.

The fight for the Nile: In recent days, the Trump administration has tried to mediate three-way talks between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia on their long-running dispute to access the waters of the Nile. In short, a 1929 treaty gave Egypt and Sudan rights to nearly all Nile waters and the right to veto any attempt by upstream countries to claim a greater share. But in 2011, Ethiopia began work on the so-called Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile tributary from where 85 percent of the Nile's waters flow. The project, due for completion next year, will be Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant. Egypt, which draws 85 percent of its water from the Nile, has made threats that raised fears of military action. We're watching as this conflict finally comes to a head early next year.

China's Plague: Doctors in Beijing have diagnosed two people with pneumonic plague, a highly-contagious disease more deadly than the bubonic version—one that can prove fatal within three days. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the lung-based pneumonic plague is very contagious and "can trigger severe epidemics through person-to-person contact via droplets in the air." Both patients come from sparsely populated province of Inner Mongolia, but are now being treated in a city of more than 20 million. Outbreaks of disease inside China raise special concerns because Chinese state secrecy undermine international confidence that published information is accurate. In this case, the WHO has confirmed that Chinese authorities have notified them about these cases. How China's government might handle information that the disease has spread is another question.

War crimes by Turkish-backed forces? US officials have surveillance footage that appears to show Turkish-Supported Opposition forces (TSO) targeting civilians in northeastern Syria. The (unverified) imagery appears to show extra-judicial executions of Syrian Kurds. State Department officials say they're also investigating a report of chemical weapons used against Syrian Kurds. US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has called Turkey's reported violations "horrible," and said, "if accurate – and I assume they are accurate – they would be war crimes." It was against this backdrop that President Trump welcomed Turkey's President Recep Erdogan to the White House on Wednesday and pronounced himself a "big fan of the president."

Australian universities' China crackdown: The Australian government unveiled new cybersecurity guidelines on Thursday to address growing concerns over Chinese infiltration at Australian universities. The voluntary guidelines – which set out steps to enhance cybersecurity and improve due diligence in research collaboration – are safeguards against what the government has called "unprecedented" levels of foreign interference in the sector. The University of Technology Sydney found itself in hot water recently after collaborating with a Chinese company with ties to mass surveillance technology used to track the persecuted Uighur minority. Beijing hackers are also accused of stealing a trove of personal data from the prestigious Australian National University. But Australia's responses come at a cost: Anti-foreign interference laws passed by Canberra last year exacerbated tensions with Beijing at a time when Chinese students contribute about $12 billion a year to the Australian economy.

The future of democracy: Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of the 2018 book How Democracies Die, have a compelling new article in the most recent issue of The Berlin Journal. In it, they warn that the greatest threats to democracy today "begin at the ballot box." The examples, they say, are many. "Like [Hugo] Chávez in Venezuela, elected leaders have subverted democratic institutions in Georgia, Hungary, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Ukraine...The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy's assassins use the very institutions of democracy—gradually, subtly, and even legally—to kill it."

What We're Ignoring:

Aeroflot Rules: Mikhail Galin's cat Viktor is a little overweight, but there's no reason Viktor shouldn't be allowed to travel safely between Moscow and Vladivostok. Russian airline Aeroflot has a rule that pets weighing more than 8 kilos (17 lbs) can only travel aboard its flights in the cargo hold rather than in the cabin. Click here to read about Mr. Galin's elaborate plot to get Viktor safely aboard the flight. (It involves a skinny decoy cat.) But Aeroflot has discovered Galin's scheme and stripped him of his frequent flier miles. We hereby call on all GZERO readers to devise clever new ways to smuggle fat cats onto Aeroflot flights. #FightThePower

13: More than 13 percent of US adults, 34 million people, report having a friend or family member who has died in the past five years because they couldn't afford medical treatment, according to a new Gallup poll. Polls show that voters consider healthcare a high-priority issue in next year's US elections.

58: Ethiopian authorities will charge 58 people over the coordinated killings of state officials in June that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed described as a coup attempt. Ethnic and religious tensions have sparked a fresh outbreak of violence in that country in recent weeks.

500,000: To combat the second worst Ebola epidemic on record, at least 500,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo will soon receive a new Ebola vaccine over a 10-month period. But some scientists say the drug's long-term side effects haven't been sufficiently tested.

2: The International Criminal Court authorized an investigation into allegations that Myanmar's military committed crimes against humanity that forced 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh. That's the second action against Myanmar at The Hague this week after the International Court of Justice said it will take up a case against Myanmar for violating the Geneva Convention.