Oh, for fuck’s sake. How is it possible to work for the New York Times and write such a blisteringly obvious column as if it’s insightful? “We must all come together” bullshit bullshit bullshit.

That requires both sides to seek reconciliation, and its precisely the Democratic urge to work together as Americans, and to follow the norms and rules, that allowed the Republicans to dominate. Why would they stop? It’s a winning strategy. It’s not the division that might topple them, it’s the overreach and abuse of power.

You want historical analogues to this moment, you’ll find them, but mostly not in American history. It ends with some catastrophic political failure that ends one of the parties; a new one arises and new politics result. Or the catastrophic failure is of the country: probably not dissolution (as our divisions aren’t geographically continuous) but likely our economy, resulting from a failure of our education and science, and likely our power, resulting from our eschewing soft power and abusing military power.

Or our democracy, because a war or terror attack will drive us straight to fascism; look at America October 2001 and tell me I’m wrong. It’s not like we’re starting from a particularly solid base, because subverting democratic institutions is also how Republicans win.

There’s no correcting force or moderating influence left. We ride this until one side, the other, or the country is crushed. Opinion | The American Civil War, Part II