It seems less and less likely that the Senate will convict former President Donald Trump
The gulf between those who want to “Stop the Steal” and those who want to “Build Back Better” is vast and seemingly unbridgeable. Millions of Americans still believe Trump won the election fair and square, only to have it stolen from him. They believe this in part because many conservative elected officials, activists, and media outlets continue to treat the claim as legitimate, or at least open to doubt.
To make matters worse, if that’s possible, the Republican Party has recently moved in a decidedly authoritarian direction. According to the Varieties of Democracy Institute in Sweden, the U.S. Republican Party in 2018 was more likely to reject political pluralism, demonize its opponents, disrespect the rights of minorities, and encourage political violence than 85 percent of the governing parties in the world’s democracies.