The base fights the elected officials.

The GOP’s fragile alliance of interests is at breaking point.

The Republican base is more or less still behind Donald Trump and his loyalists. That’s 35% or so of US voters nationally, and it’s obviously a base that a Republican cannot win without. Broadly, this core support remains nonplussed and undeterred by recent events.

Meanwhile, in the corridors of power, elected GOP officials see the writing on the wall, many jumping on the impeachment train. Mitch McConnell is privately behind the belated impeachment effort, Kevin McCarthy is wavering, and the whole thing looks set to fold in like a house of cards.

For many of the shameless Republican officials, this has hit the point where they can’t tolerate pretending Trump is a normal POTUS. Pence has all but disqualified himself from ever being President, by attracting the anger of the base, and the rest are pretty much viewed as traitors by Trump and his clan, with notable ride or die exceptions.

The Republican party is now in deep trouble, far more so than I initially thought. The events at the capitol are catalysing a long overdue war between Republican politicians, and the base they’ve humoured and relied upon. That 35% can’t win an election on its own, and there many not be enough Republicans to keep up the charade to the extent required.

A civil war unlike any the Republican party has seen in modern times is about to break forth and disrupt the typical paradigms of US politics. The Democrats must seek to engage with the disruption, and foster the hegemony that eluded them on the scale they’d want this time at the ballot box. This is the real fight for the soul of America. Democrats must gain control, and we must take that control from them.

This is all excellent news for the Democrats, and if things go the right way, and they deliver to their constituents (the way Republicans have for theirs), they can lock in an era of DNC hegemony at the top of US politics, an era progressives can seek to disrupt and seize the agenda of, to further our collective goal, of a fairer, more just, equal, and compassionate America.