In more than six hours of testimony before two Congressional committees this past Wednesday, former-Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not deliver what many had hoped for—a call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. But he bolstered the already ample body of evidence that suggests this should happen.

In an often halting, sometimes even stumbling delivery, Mueller confirmed the details of his 448-page report to the House Judiciary and House Intelligence Committees, but he would not step outside of it. “Our mandate does not go to other ways of addressing conduct, our mandate goes to developing the report and putting the report in to the Attorney General,” Mueller told Wisconsin Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner.

Still, Mueller affirmed his finding that Russia brazenly interfered with the U.S. election, that the Trump Administration welcomed this interference, and that Trump and others repeatedly lied about their actions and inactions.

That may not be enough to persuade some members of the Democrat-controlled House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly made it clear that impeachment is not “on the table.”

Indeed, the previous Wednesday, July 17, the House voted 332-to-95 to table a new impeachment resolution put forward by Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas. It was Green’s third attempt to gain traction on an impeachment vote, but the first time the House has voted on the issue since the Democrats gained a majority in the 2018 elections.

It is important to remember that building political support for impeachment is a process, and, in fact, the timeline of the current process recalls that of the path toward impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

On June 19, 1972, five men were arrested for a break-in at the Democratic Party offices in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. But it was not until July 27-30, 1974, (forty-five years ago this week) that the House Judiciary Committee adopted three articles of impeachment against Nixon. On August 8, 1974, Nixon resigned before the articles were voted on by the full House; but at that point, they would likely have passed.

The Progressive was a leading voice in the call to impeach Nixon and, in December 1973, even issued a ten-point “Bill of Impeachment” to help spur the process. “[T]he crisis that grips America today is of another, higher magnitude,” wrote the editorial staff. “It swirls, of course, around the person of the President of the United States, but it impinges on every facet of the national life and character. We are confronted, suddenly and dramatically, with fundamental questions about our national community—questions that demand swift and decisive answers.”

The magazine called on its readers to pressure their elected representatives to fulfill their oversight responsibility. “[O]nly by exerting immense and unremitting pressure can we convince the Congress that it must discharge its constitutional responsibility,” the editors wrote. “Public opinion, forcefully applied, can move the requisite number of Representatives to embark on the process of impeachment.”

This call for Congressional action would continue in each of the next seven issues of The Progressive, until articles of impeachment passed out of the House Judiciary Committee at the very end of July 1974.

The January 1974 issue gave a list of the names of the members of the House Judiciary Committee and their postal address. The February issue quoted noted Republican Senator Barry Goldwater saying, “I think it’s incumbent on the Democratic leadership of the House to get off its tail ends and move on this.”

These calls for Congressional action continued in March and April, when the editors wrote, “The message to Washington is clear. What remains to be seen is whether anyone is listening and will respond.” May’s “Comment” looked at the myth of national security as an excuse for withholding documents, and June clearly stated: “The hour is late, the danger is clear and present, and the remedy is at hand. It is time to get on with it.”

Today, there is again a groundswell of support for the impeachment of a sitting President. It has even inspired several popular songs. But, as in the first two years following Watergate, the Democratic leadership in Congress is hesitating. The Progressive has again taken the lead in calling for Congress to do its duty.

In August 2017, John Nichols authored what he terms “the first cover story in a national magazine to raise the call for impeachment.” Nichols, who also authored the 2006 book, The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism, looked at the history and reasons that the founders placed this tool in the hands of Congress.

“Two hundred and thirty years ago,” wrote Nichols in The Progressive, “[George] Mason and those who joined him in establishing a system of checks and balances argued that impeachment was the answer to a pair of questions: ‘Shall any man be above Justice? Above all, shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice?’ ”

In April 2019, The Progressive ran another cover story, “Dump Trump. Now!” again by Nichols. “It is time to be done with Donald Trump. Not in 2021. Not in 2020. Now,” he wrote. “As a practical matter, the United States and the world cannot wait for this racist con man and cheat to finish the term that the majority of Americans never wanted him to begin.”

Strong language, but at a critical time. Nichols recalled the process that led to impeachment articles against Nixon, noting that “when Democrats refused to be spectators, they found that the American people were grateful."

"Democrats would do well to again place their faith in the Constitution. It is there that the most powerful tool of resistance was lodged, in anticipation of men such as Trump and moments such as this.”

In another humorous parallel, in the days before Mueller’s testimony, Trump informed the press he would not pay attention to the hearings. “No, I'm not going to be watching, probably, maybe I'll see a little bit of it," he told reporters. It was reminiscent of Richard Nixon on November 15, 1969, as half a million protesters assembled in Washington, D.C., assuring reporters it was “a good day to watch a football game.” (His press secretary, Ron Ziegler, later said he could not be sure “whether the President had at any time glanced out the window at the streets around the White House.”)

As the clock ticks forward, we are currently on about the same timeline as July 27, 1974, when the House Judiciary Committee finally began debate on articles of impeachment. The road map is there, in the Constitution. And The Progressive continues its call for action.

But it will be a long and arduous journey. As the magazine presciently wrote in July 1974, “The coming trial of Richard M. Nixon provides us with an opportunity to recognize these realities and to treat him not so much as an author of evil but as a willing instrument. We can begin to cope with the monster of corporate power that will endure when Nixon is gone. It is an opportunity that should not be lost in squabbles over subpoenas, transcripts, and ‘executive privilege.’ ”