Americans used to get a summer break from politics. Not anymore.

August was once a time of calm in American politics. Not anymore.

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — Former President George H.W. Bush said he and his family would come to their seaside summer home here to “refurbish our souls” and “get our batteries all charged up” before plunging back into politics in the fall.

August has long marked a season of calm in Washington, when Congress goes on recess and the president takes a vacation. Labor Day weekend has long been seen as the kickoff to campaign season after a much-needed summer break for candidates and voters alike. But politics never seems to stop in our divided and smartphone-addicted nation.

August’s heat is now political.

“When I was working on the Hill from the 1970s until the early 2000s, there was a certain sacrosanct inviolability to August on both sides,” said John Lawrence, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s longtime chief of staff. “The politicians didn’t want to deal with most of the issues that came up, and most Americans didn’t want to be bothered. So it was a sort of happy arrangement.”

By tradition, business would largely halt for what Thomas Jefferson dubbed the “sickly months” of late summer in a capital city supposedly (but not actually) built on a swamp. “No good legislation ever comes out of Washington after June,” quipped Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vice president John Nance Garner.