A little more than a century separates the first impeachment of a president (Andrew Johnson in 1868) from the second. (Articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were approved by a House committee in 1974, although the president resigned before the House could impeach him.) Then, the pace accelerates: Bill Clinton (1998) was impeached 24 years later and President Trump (2019) 21 years after Clinton. Is it reasonable to assume that the interval between Trump and the next impeachment may be briefer still? Byron York’s Obsession suggests that the answer is yes.

He doesn’t say as much, but the implications seem clear: The three-year “Democratic effort to remove Trump,” writes York, “and the president’s struggle to defend himself, appear less a rushed impeachment than a long and agonizing political civil war.” Why should anyone conclude that Trump’s reelection, or for that matter a Joe Biden victory, would tame the furies that consume American politics? Impeachment, once a rare and desperate historical weapon, seems destined to become a routine feature of the struggle for political supremacy.