The signature of the Trump era is that it produced indignation and contempt without, in most cases, a concrete question of national policy that was plainly to be resolved by the outcome of the conflict. The question of border crossings, and the spectacle of children being detained in cages, was one exception. But for many of the arguments of Trump’s presidency, the argument itself—and the way it divided one tribe from the other—was the primary point. Were you thrilled by Nancy Pelosi ripping up a copy of Trump’s State of the Union address, or appalled by it? Were you more outraged by Trump’s galling effort to tie aid to Ukraine to his personal political ends, or by the fact that Hunter Biden was making lots of money in Ukraine trading on his family name? On and on and on…

The outrages Trump perpetrated in the wake of the 2020 election, leading to the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol, do not intersect with everyday life in the same intimate way as the abortion issue. But they do similarly present a vivid national choice, of a sort that can’t be easily dismissed by blurring the question or asserting that it is all just politics as usual. Any schoolchild knows that a departure from the peaceful transfer of power is not usual. There are very few Trump supporters eager to support the argument that it is okay for a president to continue asserting fraud when his own Justice Department appointees have told him they looked and found none. The root of Trump’s appeal was that his diverse outrages were all part of “owning the libs,” and driving opponents to distraction. White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified this week of an enraged Trump hurling a plate in the wall. She cleaned the ketchup stain off the wall. Trump will not so easily erase the image of impotent rage—the opposite of the blustery self-confidence that was the essence of his appeal to supporters.