The Myth of the Republican Party Civil War

The view that the Republican Party is about to tear itself apart trying to wrestle with the legacy of the Trump administration is another case of the American political class wanting to believe the crisis is less acute than it really is. If we convince ourselves that Trumpism is on its way out, we can also convince ourselves that American democracy is still strong. This is intellectually lazy and politically dangerous. As partisan and ugly as it sounds, Trumpism is the Republican Party. There is no way to purge the latter of the former. Rather, they both need to be summarily defeated.