That’s something to keep in mind, too: There are few Democrats who would think it’s a good idea to impeach the president if they know he’d be acquitted in the Senate. Given that you need 67 votes to convict, that’s just not going to happen knowing what we know now, since Democrats will at absolute most have 51 or 52 senators this time next year. Most Republicans wouldn’t vote to toss Trump from office if we learned that he killed JFK and Tupac, so there would have to be some awfully remarkable revelations to make it even a remote possibility.

Like everything else in our time, this question is determined by partisanship, and partisanship is probably going to keep Trump in office no matter what we find out he did (or what he continues to do).

So why are so many politicos so interested in warning Democrats away from even talking about impeachment? Part of the interest in this as an internal Democratic struggle stems from the perennial tendency among journalists to cry “Dems in disarray!” Another part is the insistence that however well Democrats seem to be doing at a given moment, they’re always Doing It Wrong, about to screw everything up because they fail to understand what beats in the hearts of “real” Americans, the kind who can be found tucking into a plate of sausage and eggs under their MAGA hats down at Pearl’s Diner on Main Street in Midwestburg, USA while Fox News blares in the background.