I mean this in more than one sense. Trump acquitted himself long ago in the eyes of the American people. Despite years of frivolous investigations, his approval rating is roughly equal to Barack Obama’s at this point in his term. Public polling suggests that the impeachment process is unpopular even among some voters who otherwise oppose Trump, especially in those states that will be most consequential in this year’s presidential election. (The fact that it is supported by another portion who flail omnidirectionally at Trump’s every utterance is of little consequence.) He now enjoys all the ordinary advantages of an incumbent president in peacetime. It remains to be seen what additional ones he will enjoy thanks to the monumental folly of impeachment…

Trump’s record in office, and the modest esteem in which he seems to be held by his countrymen, shows us that he is not a traitor or a criminal. He is a banal politician. Perhaps to the disappointment of many of his early supporters and regardless of whether his opponents acknowledge it, he has been accepted as an ordinary participant in American public life.