I have a question for you, but I want to make clear I'm not trying to enforce guilt or anything. I'm wondering how one deals with earthshattering blows to one's worldview. If we ever want to break this logjam, one side or the other is going to produce many humans who are suddenly going to awaken to how wrong their side was. So, with that in mind, my question:

If you agree with the broad thrust of the article, it does seem clear that a lot of the elements at play on Jan 6 had seeds sowed as far back as the Bush v Gore election. A lot of this was encouraged, more often blindly rather than with sinister motive, though not always, by the Republican elite and leadership.

And by now, the many puntings and cowerings from the GOP leadership about Trump over the years are legend. The way they've weaseled themselves into whatever influence and power they can wield through Trump is nauseating.

Both the GOP and the Dems need to learn from this, of course. The Democratic party isn't particularly structured to weather a cancer like Trump, but the very broad coalition holding the Dems together is their secret strength. The truly insane element is never able to gather sufficient support, so the folks who'd do the liberal version of the powerful oligarchic non-democratic Republic that the John Birch folks want... those guys don't rise to power, much. Certainly not to the point they can coalesce into a voting bloc in both Houses of Congress. Despite that, there's no reason for the Dems to not pay attention.

But on the flip side, I see no indication that a large enough portion of the GOP leadership has any interest in reckoning with Trump. If you know of a concrete movement that's having any success, I'd like to hear it.

The only solution I'm seeing is Dems boosting folks like Cheney and Murkowski, and in exchange, those folks boost Democrats in Purple states, and hopefully the weight of what almost happened and what actually can happen vote the against their instinct and work first to shore up democracy.

I don't care if this coalition agrees on barely anything. I don't want them to merge into one party at all. I'd rather go back to hating Chaney and sneering in contempt at Collins, while the reverse would hold against corresponding Democrats, but we'd all at least agree that there are limits to where we'll take the fight.

Do you see any other way to actually break through?

That's because both men understood the concept of legacy. Add Hilary Clinton to that list, btw. She so very easily could have refused to concede with plenty of facts to make herself feel good about it, but she didn't. I can fully believe that given who had won, she'd have far more ability to feel morally justified than the other two would have in deciding to break with tradition.

Trump has no such conception of legacy or memory. He is about exploiting the present to maximize his sense of worth. He cannot be a looser. Better to try bully the world into walking back your defeat by throwing a big enough tantrum.