Trump will take the impeachment drama and run with it – quite possibly all the way back to the White House

The president’s support has not budged, much to the anguish of his critics, writes Andrew Buncombe

Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One on 31 January (Reuters)

One of the lessons journalists were supposed to have learned from the 2016 US presidential election was not to make predictions about the one in 2020.

Four years ago, few people gave a failed property developer turned reality TV character much of a chance, either of grabbing the Republican nomination and certainly not of defeating his seemingly far better qualified opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Yet nine months from the election day, Donald Trump remains in the White House and is poised to survive being impeached by the Senate in a manner far less painful than it was for Bill Clinton two decades ago, when Clinton was really made to sweat. There was genuine fear among Clinton’s top aides that, if enough Democrats voted to support his impeachment, he may be forced to resign even if he was not actually impeached.