At some point soon, the people who can actually do something about it — Congressional Republicans — need to contend with the inevitability that this regime isn’t willingly going to give up power.

Yes, JD Vance is cringe. In a free election, he would lose. But what makes you think we’re going to have a free election in 2028? What practically stops the regime from sending in stormtroopers to harass voters and seize voting machines so they can obscure and falsify the count? Is there a single shred of evidence that anyone in the inner sanctum would let their moral scruples get in the way?

And, if they do steal the election, what do you even do about it? Is the National Guard going to start fighting the feds? Do you just have to hope the Army refuses orders? Does the Supreme Court write a strongly worded letter?Even if it’s obvious that an overwhelming majority of people rejected the regime, is there even a point where it’s Too Big To Rig?

In theory, there are a lot of futures ahead of us. But the modal outcome is that we’re less than three years away from the end of American democracy. We already essentially don’t have a constitution. They can kill you in cold blood, on video, with impunity, and lie about it. This weekend they’re going to war with my state and my city. The only off ramp I see between here and North Korea is the Senate doing its job and finally taking them out of office. And the chance of that right now is vanishingly small.