My own instinct is that unless the Democrats decide to go full tilt left in 2022 and 2024 (something they could very well do), the GOP is finished as a national party and Trump is finished as a presidential candidate.

Trump has lost access to social media. Ironically, he has also lost a great deal of access to mass media as well--they aren't carrying him 24/7 like they did beginning in 2015 and throughout his presidency. And with Fox News knocked back on its heels, it is no longer a factor.

This makes it very difficult for Trump to get the news out. Traditional politicians have always relied on grass-roots organizing. MAGA doesn't have that--it has always been a mob fueled by social media.

Meanwhile, it looks as though the GOP is hemorrhaging members and support. Some of this is disgust over 1/6. Some of this is disgust that 1/6 failed to work. Add to this the numbers of people who walked away from the GOP after 2015, and it is a complete debacle for the party.

Without Trump on the ticket in 2022, the midterms will look a lot like the recent Georgia senate elections (unless the Democrats find a way to muck it up). The blue wave that didn't occur in 2020 may well occur in 2022.

It is hard to predict what will happen in 2024 as too much can go wrong before then. However, it is also hard to see a 2024 Trump campaign getting nearly as much support as it did in 2020.

Since the GOP is now a full-fledged personality cult, it is also difficult to believe that the GOP can win in 2024 without Trump at the top of the ticket.

1/6 has a lot to do with all this. While many people may have moved on, I keep thinking of voters like my daughter who watched events unfold on 1/6 with absolute horror. Previously, she was a possible GOP voter if Trump were removed from the scene.

Would she ever vote for the GOP again? Only if the Democratic candidate were a hardcore Berniac and she felt she had no other choice. Maybe not even then.

This does not mean that the struggle is over. I suspect things will get much worse, as MAGA supporters increasingly give up on electoral politics altogether, and turn to armed insurrection and terrorism.

In such an atmosphere, the odds are high that in order to deal with MAGA the left and even the slightly left of center will increasingly urge abandonment of constitutional norms and rule of law.

If these things occur, then all bets are off when it comes to electoral politics. Things will look a lot like 1860-61.

With this in mind, the Biden election was not the end of the issues plaguing the US, or even the beginning of the end. It may actually be the calm before the storm.

I hope that things won't turn out that way, but we need to be aware that this could very well be America's future. The only way out is increasing emphasis on working together, civility, kindness, laying aside anger and bitterness, and rule of law.