These buzzwords have caught on all the same. Mr Trump’s camp recently produced a slick television advertisement featuring ordinary voters reaching into this grab-bag of comparisons, calling impeachment a “witch hunt”, a “scam” and a “joke”. Naturally, Democrats want to rally their troops, too, and have duly come up with dubious slogans of their own. Rashida Tlaib, who was elected to Congress in November 2018, said her goal was to “impeach the motherfucker”. Her campaign marketed the catchphrase (bowdlerised with stars) as a t-shirt. For his part, Bill Weld, a dissident Republican, has said that Mr Trump is guilty of “treason”, reminding his audience that the penalty for that is death.

Such is the nature of the process, however, that, as the accusers, congressional Democrats faced another, very different challenge: while pressing their political case, they also had to hone specific charges for the articles of impeachment. Two that they considered, “extortion” and “bribery”, both had disadvantages. One was that they are contradictory; extortion involves putting a squeeze on a victim, while bribery is more consensual. The second drawback was that both are federal crimes. Politically, if not in law (since the Senate is not a courtroom), pursuing either would have led to demands that they should be proven to the standard of a criminal prosecution. Failure might have undermined the case.

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