Trump’s Scarlet Letter

There was the 230–197 tally itself—nearly all Democrats voting in favor of making Trump the third president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives, with every single Republican, as expected, in opposition. But there was also the sense that this moment—rancorous yet solemn, dramatic yet not suspenseful—had been building for much longer than the two and a half months since Pelosi dropped her long-standing opposition to impeachment and formally opened the Democrats’ case against Trump. It began before the July 25 phone call in which Trump infamously asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the “favor” of investigating his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. And maybe it even began before last year’s midterm elections, when voters across the country handed Democrats the House majority and, with it, the power to confront the president.

In truth, the inexorable march toward impeachment probably began on January 20, 2017.