This was always going to end with the conclusion that old rules about the behavior of political actors in our system no longer apply: The gap between incentives and the mechanisms available to stop bad actors is too wide. The structures are just cracked at a foundational level.

If you can’t hold a president responsible for fomenting an insurrection - the mechanism and political will just doesn’t exist - then it wasn’t so much an insurrection as a legitimate way of pursuing a political goal. That’s where we’re at.

Rules, whether they’re written laws or informal norms, only apply if you can enforce them.