Consider also the impact of a defeated party advocating the use of political force to overturn a clearly decided election on the body politic.

If no political price is paid by the president and his cadres, what then? There is moral hazard for a republic that imposes no meaningful consequence on those who would destroy it from within.

Even if the president fails to overturn his election defeat, the mere attempt presents a Rubicon-like test for our republic. A line has been crossed, and it is important that those who wish for the nation to long endure push back.

The saboteurs who have struck at the heart of our democracy should be considered politically—if not morally—irredeemable. They should be pariahs, marked forever, as if they had sworn allegiance to an adversarial regime.

A republic that respects itself should remember where people stood in this moment, and keep those who would threaten it far from the instruments of political power.

We must never forget.