Cheney’s defenestration thus begs the question: what defines today’s Republican party? Its grassroots is driven by two passions: who it loves and who it hates. The party’s base idolises Trump. Everyone in Washington knows the same is not true of many if not most elected Republicans. Figures such as Florida’s Marco Rubio and Texas’s Ted Cruz were speaking their minds in 2016 when they depicted Trump as a low life con artist. Harriet Hageman, the Trump-endorsed Republican who unseated Cheney, was probably sincere in 2016 when she called Trump a “racist and xenophobic”. Ambition, and fear of the mob, have turned all these figures into hollow mini-Trumps.

Conventional parties manage their extremes. In the case of today’s Republicans, however, the extreme sets the narrative. In another time, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia, would be dismissed as a political freak. Greene openly avows the QAnon theory that America’s establishment is run by paedophiles. The more offensive her stances, the more money she raises. Last week she got rousing applause at a party event when she said she opposed solar panels because they only work when the sun is out. “I want to stay up later at night,” she said. “I don’t want to have to go to bed when the sun sets.” 

Today’s Republican party belongs to Greene not Cheney. It is even more strongly motivated by what it hates than by admiration of Trump. I have no idea whether Greene is as stupid as she sounds. She could also be highly savvy. The key to success in today’s conservative movement is to provoke those who look down on it. It guarantees media notoriety that can be monetised. Trump devised the model. But he is not the last word on it. The key is to enrage the overeducated moralisers in bicoastal urban America. The more ignorant you sound, the more contemptuous the cultural elites, which is worth its weight in electoral gold.