As the House of Representatives prepares to impeach the president on Wednesday, there's a baffling spirit in the air among the politically aware and ideologically conscious. This is, we keep hearing, a historic moment, only the third impeachment in American political history. But it doesn't feel historic. It doesn't feel like much of anything, to be honest. It's just another day ending in “y” in Donald Trump's Washington.
Now, I guess unusual things are historic things. But it might be worth wondering why it is historic, given the fact that everyone knows the impeachment is as far as this effort to punish Trump will go. He will be acquitted by the Senate, as Bill Clinton was acquitted, and as Andrew Johnson was acquitted—although Johnson came very close to conviction. And this is precisely why impeachments are unusual. Because they're pointless. Only once in American history has a president resigned rather than face what he believed to be certain conviction in the Senate. That's 1/45th of the presidents we've had. You do the math.
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