The time between Election Day in November and Inauguration Day in January is usually pretty sleepy. Before 2020, only academics and the most fanatical political junkies could tell you the name of Georgia’s secretary of state, or the Electoral College meeting date, or that a joint session of Congress convenes to certify each state’s electoral vote count on January 6.

In so many ways, this year is different. While none of his bluster is likely to work, President Trump refuses to go quietly into the night like Al Gore did after the fiercely contested 2000 election. Instead of a mere formality, congressional certification of the election results became the occasion for one of the most surreal quasi-putsch attempts in modern history, as Proud Boys, QAnon fanatics, and guys wearing animal skins stormed the Capitol on behalf of their Maximum Leader.

It was a farce, but it was not funny at all. Millions of Americans and scores of Republican politicians have followed Trump into a vortex that it will be very difficult to pull the GOP and the country at large out of.