Which means that there is no Trump “fever” that is going to break, because Trumpism is now not a fever. It is an entrenched, all-encompassing fact of Republican and conservative life; one that is likely to be with us for quite a while. Trump may personally fade, but Trumpism is here to stay, for the foreseeable future.

Which means that authoritarianism—with inflections, or at least overtones, of fascism—will be here for a while, too. With an infrastructure, with a popular base, and with elite enablers. In other words: With its own establishment.

Obviously anything that can be done to weaken Trumpism’s hold on the Republican party would be good. But this chipping away will be gradual and will most likely take time. We’re more likely to have some Republican Brezhnevs and Andropovs before we get a GOP Gorbachev.

The old Republican Reaganite conservative establishment has, unfortunately, been replaced by a new MAGA establishment. The question is whether on the other side of the aisle a new vigorous, hard-headed, liberal establishment can be born. If this is not to be what Gramsci called a time of monsters, it needs to be born quickly.