The former president faces the prospect of political irrelevance. But the lasting damage he has done is evident in the chaotic scenes in Congress
“It’s just drama,” sighed Jaime Herrera Beutler last Wednesday as the new Republican majority in Congress repeatedly fumbled its first automatic obligation, taking 15 votes to elect a speaker. Beutler herself took no part in the posturing and play-acting. Having voted in favour of impeaching Donald Trump after the riot at the Capitol on 6 January 2021, she missed her chance for re-election when Trump pushed one of his loyalists to challenge her.
The Trumpist ousted Beutler in a run-off, then lost to a Democrat in the general election: Trump had his petty revenge, for which the Republicans paid. Though he continues to whip up drama, he has lost his capacity to direct it, and so the unscripted, absurdly improvised drama reels on – in the short term comic but, as it confounds the country’s government, in the long run probably tragic.