A capital as partisan as Washington does not need an issue of substance to divide it. A matter of process will do. The resolution that passed the House of Representatives last week was a case in point. It did not seek to impeach Donald Trump for pressing Ukraine to investigate a political rival. It did not even frame what the articles of impeachment against the president might be. Rather, it set out how Congress would proceed with its inquiry. It dealt with rules rather than content.
Still, all but two Democrats voted for it while no current Republican did the same. As both a precis of recent decades and as a trailer for what is to come, the resolution, which passed along these party lines, was grimly accurate.
As rancorous as the following weeks will be, the resolution also contains some cause for hope. Until now, the inquiry into Mr Trump has played out mostly in private. It is about to break into the open. The intelligence committee of the House is to hold public hearings. Depositions taken in closed quarters could be published. There is the prospect of sustained and televised questioning of witnesses.