Today's scenes in the Capitol are a disgrace. The organizers and perpetrators of this banana republic coup attempt must be prosecuted and punished. Any politician who does not unequivocally condemn what happened should have no future in democratic politics.

Hard questions must be asked about the role of the Capitol police. Was this just ineptitude? A grave danger in a situation such as this arises if the police have been politicized to the point of sympathizing with the mob.

There is a strong temptation at this point to say that I was wrong and that this really is Weimar America, after all: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-09-06/trump-s-america-is-no-weimar-republic?sref=ojq9DljU

Today, the arguments made over the past four years by @sullydish , @anneapplebaum and others seem vindicated. Even if it is not Weimar, the Trump presidency is certainly ending in the style of a banana republic.

But my view is that, rather than worsening the country's polarization, the events of the past months have restored the center ground. Trump lost; so did the far left of the Democratic Party. Biden personifies the middle of the road. He didn't sweep to power on a blue wave.

Pence's letter and McConnell's speech today mark the end of the Republican establishment's affair with Trump. The narrowness of the Democrats' majorities in the Senate and House should also help the center hold.

This, at least, is my hope: that having been infected by the virus of anti-democratic politics, we may have acquired some resistance to it.