To the extent he had one, Joe Biden’s core campaign promise was that if he was elected, “nothing would fundamentally change.” In one respect, arguably above all others, that prediction has proven correct: Republicans are still driving the country’s political agenda, even though they are out of power in the White House and Congress.

The GOP has managed to do that for two key reasons: first, because the dominant wing of the Democratic Party has repeatedly failed to present the country with a compelling political vision, and second, because Republicans have found ways to leverage power with increasingly undemocratic tactics.

Democrats have rightfully used their majority in Congress to investigate the serious breach of democratic norms that Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans engaged in during the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. In contrast to many other democratic countries, it is extraordinarily rare for US politicians to face any serious legal accountability for their conduct in office. In that regard, the investigations are a welcome change to the status quo, even if they have so far proven insufficient to address the real threat to democracy that large portions of the Republican Party still present.