Trump Has Completely Remade the Republican Party

Jonathan Chait: “The party’s trajectory since the insurrection is stark. In the days after January 6, 2021, Trump was deemed totally toxic. Business groups pledged to deny funds to any Republican candidate who refused to accept the election result. But since then, Liz Cheney was purged from her leadership post for continuing to maintain that the insurrection was wrong, then was successfully targeted in a primary. Mike Pence, once the ultimate Republican hyperpartisan, became loathed solely because he refused to help steal the election. The House replaced its Speaker with one of the legal architects of Trump’s coup attempt.”

“If Trump returns to office, he won’t literally need allies who say he won in 2020. What he will need is for the entire party to understand that the price of disobedience of any of his whims, however deranged or illegal it may be, is political death.”