I think the crazies, and the racists, have hit their high water mark.

[Tom Rinaldo]

That doesn't that mean the flooding will significantly recede anytime soon, but the crest hit January 6, 2021. I know that danger continues, but I think the highest risks diminish from here. Most likely there will be further violence, but it will be more akin to previous right wing domestic terrorism, launched in the shadows with fewer full frontal assaults on our Democratic institutions.

The far right finally got their president, and now he has come and gone. They had their man on high who could amplify a call to hatred to the maximum degree possible. Trump could, and did, manipulate the Department of Justice to shield them from adverse legal consequences. Trump was the demagogue they needed, the man who literally embraced their violence and the physical intimidation of any and all opponents. He waved the bloody flag of tribalism like a red flag before a bull, and did so while standing before a podium bearing the presidential seal.

With demographics shifting inexorably toward a more multi-cultural America, Trump represented their last best chance to impose their intolerance on America, with all of its fascistic underpinnings, and they knew it. That's why the a mob assembled on January 6th willing to storm Congress to impose their will upon it. They fell short, the Republic survived, and now comes the turning of the tide.

I believe that the Republican Party, as it currently stands, is in for a world of hurt. Bigots will consolidate their hold in places, but the brass ring of national leadership has slipped out of their hands.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Hopefully, that was their Pickett's Charge and it's downhill for them going forward...

[Miguelito Loveless]

2. If the January 6 Trump insurrection

Is not punished, from Trump down to the lowliest MAGAt, then we will not have reach peak crazy, sjfe another round will soon follow.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. We don't have to win Trump's impeachment trial, but we did have to vigeroulsy

pursue it, and Democrats are doing just that. The FBI will report to Merrick Garland now, not to William Barr, and their investigation is massive and ongoing. The cock roaches crawled out of their cracks and now they are exposed.

[Miguelito Loveless]

16. I think the GOP would acquit

Trump even if were to beat a kitten to death with a puppy in the senate chamber while handing over nuclear weapons blueprints to Putin.

He, and all his ilk MUST be prosecuted. Everyone of them. And they must serve hard time.

[PirateRo]

3. The good part of this - the silver lining - is watching the Republican Party bleed out support

These people won’t be back, they are outraged at events. They’v’e lost 140,000 people and their brand is something many won’t use to wipe their ass.

This is delightful to watch - they won’t convict trump but they entirely lose their future as a party. The replacement party will exist without Nixon’s southern strategy and without Ralph Reed.

The rest will wander the earth, as blind as as stupid as they always were.

[Joinfortmill]

11. 👍

[58Sunliner]

5. They keep trying at the state level though.

Va will choose a new governor and the cons are already pushing the meme that they are not those people. What people? That part is left unsaid. Works well if what you fear is the liberals or the crazies who might turn the vote against them. Undercurrents of anger are palpable with a whopping side dish of denial.

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. Very True. Trump carried a wave of extrmists with him into State Republican Parties

Those folks include the truly rabid and as long as their hands stay at the GOP steering wheel it will continue to veer hard right. But they were carried into state offices by a wave of angry Trump supporters with Trump's constant and active incitement, there was a rightest populist wave. I think the power propelling that wave is now waning, but those most identified with it, who now occupy positions of power in the Republican Party, will be the last to recognize and/or admit it. That wave was their meal ticket.

Either they will be deposed, when their one time rabid supporters stop showing up at Party conventions to support them, or they will continue to reign over a much truncated Republican Party. Of course that won't be true in all places. With political polarization as extreme as it is today, some bright red areas of the nation could get even crazier, but I think purple will start veering blue, and with it the balance of power in America.

[58Sunliner]

14. I am hoping that action at the fed level would reduce state leverage.

some sort of election reform on a national scale. I'm not sure what it would take legally to insist on paper trail voting, and a national voter registration. I'm grateful that people are utilizing absentee ballots as a way to try to ensure their vote is counted. I'm really tired of cleaning up the mess the cons leave us.

[SlogginThroughIt]

6. Waiting to see what they pull Mar 4.

[tavernier]

7. I like that analogy

because I picture them tied to a piling while crocs circle.

[peacebuzzard]

8. I'm sheltered in place in a high volume racist territory.

It has improved over the years, still, a long way to go in the Appalachians. I agree it's topped out in the Ugly Merikkan bigot jerk category & they are still alive; but trying to hide it somewhat.

[Johnny2X2X]

9. It will be smaller, but much more extreme

The crazies will be reduced in number by 80%, but the several million left will be more dangerous.

[Joinfortmill]

10. From your lips...., my friend.

[genxlib]

13. Not coincidentally

COVID cases hit their high water mark 5 days after that.

I have to believe those two things are related. As they go underground, our health improves.

[Chainfire]

15. I like the OP's optimism, I hope it is justified by future events.

I do not think that the events have dampened the hardcore right's emotions, and they are emotion driven.

Unless you spend some time among the various brands of Fascist groups you just can't imagine either their hate for all things progressive nor their ability to completely tune out the truth. They believe that they represent the vast majority of Americans because the only places they go, they see people just like themselves. They see themselves as a Christian Army of patriots and if you are not with them, you are against them. They believe that "Gott Mit Uns." These folks will continue to push until they are put down. Given a chance, and given the power even if localized, these people are capable of committing atrocities. they are cut from the same cloth as the SS.

An old military saying is that you do not prepare for what you think that the enemy will do, but prepare for what he is capable of doing.

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. The optimism I expressed doesn't refute the truth you just shared

I accept that every word you said is true. That hate, that zealotry, existed before Trump and it will continue to exist without him. My optimism is confined to a belief that Trump becoming president optimized the conditions for their movements to grow and flourish, and now that super charged stimulant has, to an at least significant extent, been constricted. We remain in for a long fight, and I agree with you that that old military saying holds true for what we still continue to face.