I fear that Trump and the GOP have caused permanent damage to this country

[Kyblue1]

The large number of GOP members of Congress who supported Trump’s nonsense and supported the March on the Capital bodes I’ll for the country’s future. The plans for armed Marches on State Capitals in support of Trump is scary. The many years of GOP and NRA support for the right to bear arms at all times will lead to more violence. What is our way out of this mess created by the Right wing nut Trumpsters? Do we now understand that elections have consequences?

[redstatebluegirl]

1. No doubt they have, it may never be repaired.

Arresting them is getting their attention, but we need the people who planned it, and they need public trials.

[pandr32]

4. +1

[Greybnk48]

2. Things will change, as always when something like this happens,

but maybe not "damage." I think the changes that occur will be for the better.

Edit: I'm hoping that future Presidential candidates will be more closely vetted; social media will be more closely regulated, and these fucking militias and cults will not be so coddled and tolerated. I also think these radical congress people should be punished, shunned, removed--something.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. I am hoping - maybe naively - that once Trump is out of office, most of the MAGAts will

gradually drift away from the cult. It is, after all, a personality cult, and allegiances to personalities are not transferrable to others. Trump has a unique talent - he's a carnival barker crossed with a demagogue, like the bastard offspring of P.T. Barnum and Hitler. He has been able to tap into and cultivate the worst impulses of people who already had dangerous attitudes - racism, white supremacy, xenophobia and "Christian" nationalism at the top of the list - with outrageous and offensive statements that expressed, loudly and publicly, what they were thinking and wanted to say themselves. He was able to make angry, privileged white people believe that only he could get rid of the bad people who they thought were keeping them down in some way (of course, equality looks like oppression to those who are accustomed to privilege). Obviously some GOP hangers-on like Cruz and Hawley hope to pick up those voters in 2024, but they don't have Trump's unique talent for mesmerizing throngs of angry, stupid people (Hawley just torpedoed his own chances, and Cruz is so oily and obnoxious that everybody hates him already). As of now, nobody else does either.

No doubt the current lunacy will continue for awhile, but I think that once Trump is no longer president and has to try to maintain his influence from Mierda-Loco (assuming he isn't in prison), that influence will gradually dissipate when it becomes apparent that he can't actually do anything. It will probably take a couple of years, but reality has a way of intruding into people's delusions. Those who aren't being prosecuted for trying to sack the Capitol will find that they still have to support themselves and their families and go about their lives. Continuing to carry the flag for some fat old washed-up ex-politician who can't do anything for them will eventually be seen as a wasted effort. Some might even recognize that they've been had. Many will continue to hold racist and otherwise Trumpist beliefs but at least they won't be storming government buildings.

I hope I'm not being unrealistically hopeful.