More broadly, does everyone in the Republican Party truly want to be "jostling for position in the Politburo"? Even if they are willing to end democracy as we know it, many of them would prefer to have robust intra-party democracy, because that is still the route to power for those who want to challenge their leaders.

But these factors are still not quite responsive to the question motivating this column: What if Republicans are simply bad at this? Even beyond the hurdles based on personal ambitions and other strategic matters, what if -- like many would-be authoritarian parties before them -- the Republicans simply cannot keep themselves together well enough to do what they want to do? In other words, can we add incompetence to the list of things that might save us, along with intramural paralysis?

I am skeptical. Despite the evidence of Republican dysfunction in state governments around the country, they are definitely getting many things -- very, very bad things -- done. Just ask anyone who is in, or who cares about, the LGBTQIA+ community, who is a racial or ethnic minority, or who could become pregnant. Or, in my case, who is a university professor who is now legally prohibited from saying certain things in class about systemic racism, gay rights, and many other scholarly subjects.

In the end, I am confident that the one-party Republican governments of the future will be utterly inept, to say nothing of being wholly corrupt. Even so, before they reach the point where they can trip all over themselves, they will lock down the system. The current follies in the House, after all, ultimately do not matter, because the Republicans' bills will all die in the Senate or be vetoed. When it does matter, they will get where they need to be. To the detriment of the rest of us.