Since May 9, when Donald Trump fired F.B.I. Director James Comey, “Watergate” has been the word of the day, every day. It may still remain a liberal fantasy that the Comey firing could be the inciting incident for the president’s resignation or impeachment, the way Watergate was for Richard Nixon, but that June 1972 break-in at the Watergate Office Complex remains the most obvious historical analogue for the current, scandal-riddled moment.

When Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, everyone from cable news to D.C. bars treated it like the Oscars. Networks planned Comey testimony pre-shows. Watering holes around the capital had drink specials; one opened half an hour before the 10 A.M. testimony for a “pregame,” as the Washington Post reported this week. But the Watergate Hotel—on the site of the scandal that brought down a president and perhaps the best poised to capitalize on the current moment—was not one of them.

In an act of kismet none could have predicted, the Watergate Hotel, which had been bought and sold several times in the years since Nixon’s resignation, reopened exactly a year ago, flaunting a $125 million renovation that capitalized on its 70s vintage cool and, with a few cheeky touches, its scandalous past. But its unexpected relevance has also come with competition, right down the road in the Trump International Hotel, a giant symbol of, and possible party to, the actual scandal currently absorbing the national’s capital. The Watergate break-in is beginning to look quaint compared to Trump’s many alleged conflicts and collusions—and the hotel, beautifully renovated as it may be, is forced to elbow past Trump himself to be part of the zeitgeist.

When the Watergate made its splashy return last summer, the main story in most publications including this one was how the new co-owners, Rakel and Jacques Cohen, leaned in to its historical notoriety with winky gestures. In 2017, the house pencils say “I Stole This From the Watergate Hotel.” While it was a well-known luxury retreat before all that, “Watergate” is largely a concept now, one that's synonymous with political scandal for most Americans, even for those who are murky on the original details.

And the hotel is certainly still having a moment. The search term “Watergate” still trends upward on Google. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes released a commercial that used the hotel as a backdrop and promised to “keep asking questions” like Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporters who broke the scandal. A patently unfunny, though popular joke online is some variation of: “Trump should just buy the Watergate Hotel.”

But is the political turmoil actually good for business? Rakel Cohen bristled at the suggestion on a recent phone call with Vanity Fair. “We never take advantage of anything that goes on in the political side or even Nixon,” she explained. Though the keys cheekily read “No Need to Break In” and anyone who’s put on hold after calling the 800 number will hear the ex-president’s speeches, they “never made a ‘Nixon Room’ or anything like that [during the renovation].” They wanted to honor the history, but they weren’t going to go all in.

“Watergate did not become famous because of the scandal,” Cohen continued. “The scandal happened here because it was so famous. All the presidents celebrated their birthdays here, celebrities were here. And that's what we're trying to bring back.”

But it’s a challenging environment in which to stage a comeback, especially with the Trump International Hotel, like the man himself, sucking up all the oxygen in town. “D.C. is a town of habit, especially when it comes to its social activities,” says Kate Bennett, longtime chronicler of the city’s gossip and current CNN’s Coverlines newsletter writer. “Drinking here, happy hour, those things are big deals, but it's hard to be the new place on the block unless you really spread a wide net and rope people in. That's why I think hotels like Watergate are sort of suffering finding an audience.”

Angie Fetherston, C.E.O. of Drink Company, which owns and manages several bars in the District, reiterated that if D.C. residents are going there for a drink it’s because the hotel has managed to “revitalize that waterfront park.” She explained, “I’m sure they get questions about the history all the time, but people go to the Watergate because it’s an awesome place to get a drink.”

The Trump International Hotel is also a new kid in town, having opened in October, only four months before its namesake moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But it has become a hub of activity, not only for the visiting foreign leaders who book rooms perhaps hoping to curry favor with the president (which some consider a violation of the Emoluments Clause), but for the few Trump diehards who live in a district that voted 90.9 percent for Hillary Clinton.

“It seems to be the new G.O.P. clubhouse,” Bennett said, referring to the high concentration of lobbyists and gelled-haired men with cigars sticking out of their breast pockets, as well as reports that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin resides there. Trump, too, gets his hardened, dry steak at the house restaurant, BLT Prime, when he’s in town. (The hotel declined to comment on whether Mnuchin still lives there, or discuss sales figures.)

Fetherston takes the long view, saying, “As far as the Trump Hotel, you know, we are people that live in Washington, D.C. We understand politics, business as usual. All the scandals obviously affect us, but we see how this machine works, and just because it has somebody's name on the door, doesn’t mean that there wasn't a clubhouse somewhere else before. Politics have always worked in the same way here. They’ve always been done over a glass of wine.”

But it’s not only insiders that belly up to the bar. Bennett added, “It's also a mecca for diehard Trump people who make a pilgrimage,” Bennett said, noting that its located in a prime location to pull in tourists. “You’ll find people in the MAGA hats just sitting at the bar, just proud as can be to be taking a selfie at Trump’s hotel. That might not be the clientele they’re used to in Trump five-star hotel-land.”

Other Trump hotels, like the one in New York City's SoHo, are slashing rates and planning layoffs. The one in D.C. charges $545 a night, according to the Web site, up from $400 in the days leading up to the election, though not quite at $625, where rates started. The hotel’s prime location in D.C. makes it a kind of MAGA Disneyland—even if it’s mostly a distressing metaphor for the Trump presidency.

Meanwhile, the Watergate, for all its vintage cachet, still seems to capture the imagination of the people who remember it the first time around. Julia Livick, a marketing manager at a global-risk consultancy firm, was instructed by her boss to book a corporate conference at the Watergate with the company’s higher-ups in mind. “My sense is that it still holds some sort of historic glamour for people of older generations,” she said.

The Trump Hotel might not have that historic allure yet, but it attracts a different sort of attention. As Livick puts it, “I send a Snapchat of myself flicking [Trump Hotel] off every time I see it.”