You can say, “The base is calling the shots and the electeds are just following what the voters demand.” That’s nonsense. The base doesn’t get its ideas from nowhere. It gets them from Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and the rest of the conservative media world. And it gets them from elected officials. To paraphrase what Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn told the January 6th Committee: When elected officials give permission, there is no limit to the violence that may ensue.

Trump was the arsonist. But if every time he dropped a match on the dry tinder of American polarization, Republican elected officials and others had leaped to extinguish the small flames, we would not be here.

And where is here? We have seen the end of 160 years of the peaceful transfer of power. We’ve seen the majestic United States Capitol turned into a scene from a dystopian fantasy; an armed mob attempting to subvert an election. They smashed and tortured and caused deaths. They erected a gallows and hunted for the speaker of the House and for the vice president. And Republicans, almost to a man and woman, are excusing, downplaying, or whitewashing what happened. An entire political party has abandoned commitment to the rule of law.

To speak up now, well, it’s better than nothing. But it’s a little like saying you’ll take away a drunk’s driver’s license after he crashed into and killed an 8-year-old. What about all of those times when you saw him get behind the wheel after five drinks and did nothing?