This week's trifecta of Iowa caucuses, the State of the Union address and the Senate impeachment trial vote, taken all together, are a roadmap of how we got to where we are and where to go from here.

"X" will mark the spot where Americans are by this Thursday: knowing the first winner in the Democrats' presidential selection process, having heard the president's no doubt favorable assessment of his accomplishments, and facing the ugly aftermath of the constitutionally necessary impeachment process.

The next step must be for the Democrats to unite behind a candidate who can beat the bruised but not bowed president if he emerges from Wednesday's Senate vote as expected: not found guilty of the two counts brought against him, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

After Iowa and with the New Hampshire primary up next, Democrats must be looking at who is strong enough to stand up to Trump and beat him in the election. When Senate Republicans admit the Democrats proved their case in impeachment but decline to vote Trump out — saying it is up to the voters — the Democrats' choice is crucial. It must be someone who won't be bullied by a Trump trumpeting his survival and calling it a triumph.

Though he may have escaped the penalty for putting his own re-election before the interests of American foreign policy and the security of our voting process, Democrats must not forget for one minute that it was his re-election scheme that started this impeachment process. Who knows what else he will do to survive and win? Democrats need to find it in themselves and their party to be less self-aggrandizing than he is, and step up for the party choice as he or she emerges. The party needs only one nominee — the one who will win in November.

While Congress, the administration and even the courts have been preoccupied with impeachment legalities and politics, the door Donald Trump slammed on the best interests of Americans has stayed tightly shut. The focus on much of the other urgent business of government has suffered. Some matters are long-term and affect nearly all Americans, like health care, tariffs, carbon emissions and the security of our elections. Others are human emergencies such as overdue relief for victims of the Puerto Rico earthquake and hurricanes, or the plight of immigrant children at the U.S.-Mexican border, still separated from parents in federal detention centers. We don't know what the president might say to Congress Tuesday evening about detention — he is the one who ordered it.

Nor can we say ahead of time just what Donald Trump, out from under the shadow of losing his office through impeachment, will assess as the state of this union. We don't know whom or what he will target next. But with the launch of the primary season, the field will narrow and the focus will return to the issues as each candidate makes her or his case.

As Democrats sift through their choices they should remember that no president has ever gotten everything he wants nor delivered on every promise. The best to be hoped for is compromise, and right now compromise is an old favorite song we haven't heard in a while. Democrats, the first question to ask your party is the only question that truly matters, because without the right answer the rest is moot: Which one of you can beat Donald Trump?

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.