After nearly three years of this, the mystery is not that it continues, given the opposition’s perceived limited alternatives, but that there is still any expectation of novelty, sincerity, or believability. A wearied public has reached the point of no return. From now on, it is far more likely that each new feigned outrage will have the opposite effect of helping Trump and hurting his accusers. After all, we are now reduced to Representative Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) supposedly reading the transcript of the Trump phone call, but instead making things up as he does, editorializing, and adding and subtracting, as he pleases, from what was actually said. And when caught, Schiff can only stammer that as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee he was actually offering a “parody” of the supposed grounds-for-impeachment document.

In this entire melodrama Biden will become the real casualty, and Trump the benefactor, at least in the long term.

When the entire nature of the whistleblower, his handlers, and his media enablers is fully known, when attention turns, as it already has, to Biden’s real legal exposure, two things will follow:

Biden will get snappy, befuddled, and indignant to questions, to the extent he will even entertain them — all the while losing ground to Elizabeth Warren. Trump will be the eventual beneficiary of Warren’s more likely and more alienating candidacy. And, even if impeached, Trump will be perceived, rightly or wrongly, as growing stronger for enduring ever shriller and more monotonous attacks.