Let it serve as a reminder that the problem is not just Trump, not even primarily Trump: It’s the party that elevated him in the first place, the party that embraces and elevates far-right extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.

The problem is the party that has been completely taken over by the far-right “populist” energies that conservative elites have been fueling for decades, always believing they could harness and control them in a quest to entrench traditional hierarchies, but never succeeding.

The problem is the party that is dominated by people who are not just skeptical of “big government,” but hostile to government itself, who reject functional governance and are entirely uninterested in any kind of constructive public policy.

The problem is the party that doesn’t care about majoritarian principles, democratic self-government, or the rule of law because it is comprised of people who consider white conservatives the sole proponents of “real America” and therefore entitled to rule.

The problem is the party whose anti-democratic radicalization has outpaced what even most critical observers imagined, the party serving as the political arm of an escalating reactionary counter-mobilization that would rather tear the whole system down than accept pluralism.

The problem is the party ruled by people who have long given themselves permission to cross any line, to embrace any extremists, in that defining struggle against what they constantly play up as a totalitarian threat from “the Left” to the essence of the nation.

The problem is the party full of people who absolutely will go *that far* - because they have convinced themselves and their radicalizing base that the other side has already gone *much further* and will stop at nothing.

In a healthy democratic system and political culture, anyone associated with the deranged extremism of people like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene would be shunned and ostracized, and the party that elevates such forces would no longer be considered a viable option.

Instead, enabled by the many anti-democratic distortions in the constitution and the political system, the door has been left wide open for that party and the extremist forces that control it - they have been put in a position to undermine and subvert democracy on all levels.