Impeachment is actually neither a wholly judicial proceeding nor an entirely political one: In order to be successful, impeachment proceedings must check the political box of achieving broad public support, which in turn requires voters to view the process as credibly judicial rather than strictly partisan.

The system, in other words, makes removing a president from office by way of brute force partisanship nearly impossible. Given that political polarization is already endemic, it is an open question whether bipartisan consensus on what constitutes impeachable offenses would even be achievable in the age of Trump.

But the most reliable way to ensure that such consensus will be impossible would be for either party to make impeachment (or preventing an impeachment) the centerpiece campaign issue for the 2018 midterm elections.