"Just wait: Watergate didn't become Watergate overnight, either" — New York mag cover story, by Frank Rich:
"For all the months of sensational revelations and criminal indictments... a Harris poll found that only 22 percent thought Nixon should leave office. Gallup put the president's approval rating in the upper 30s, roughly where our current president stands now — lousy, but not apocalyptic. There had yet to be an impeachment resolution filed in Congress by even Nixon's most partisan adversaries. ... [A]fter Nixon hit a new low of a 27 percent approval rating in November 1973, he spiked to 37 in a Harris poll a month later. ... Looking back on it all, Elizabeth Drew would write, 'In retrospect, the denouement appeared inevitable — but it certainly didn't feel like that at the time.'"
Go deeper: The timelines of Watergate vs the Russia probe, side by side.