Henry Farrell has an excellent take on Republican claims that Democrats are being “divisive” by seeking accountability for the storming of the Capitol. He notes that being divisive is actually very much the point, that this push for accountability “is intended to enforce a clear division between those who accept and are committed to democracy and those who are willing to turn to violence when the vote doesn't turn out the way that they want it to.” He goes on to write that anyone interested in preserving democracy needs to fight back and discredit attempts to bring violence into the political system in order to avoid a downward spiral of rule by force and general ruination of our democracy.

I think this is absolutely correct, and is at the heart of why Democrats and any Republicans still committed to American democracy need to fight implacably to punish anyone involved in this coup attempt. Farrell notes that what the GOP is really worried about when it lobs accusations of divisiveness is in fact exposing a schism in the Republican Party between those who condone violence and those who don’t.

The possibility that demanding accountability would fracture the Republican Party is an excellent secondary reason to pursue it. It will force the Republicans to either clean house, or openly show themselves as a party that sanctions violence to achieve their political goals — which is to say, no longer a legitimate democratic party. I think this ties in to my hunch that the Democrats fear pushing the GOP to a point of breakdown, either by acting more aggressively on impeachment or rallying more quickly in favor of expelling from Congress those Republican representative and senators who inflamed the insurrectionary mob by propagating the big lie that the election was stolen. The internal fight into which Democrats could push the Republicans might well result in the pro-violence faction winning out, with the Democrats left to face a yet-more vicious opponent. But if this fear is holding them back, it’s not a reasonable one. Holding the GOP accountable for the way some of its members incited violence is more likely to simply rupture the Republican Party into a de facto civil war between pro- and anti-democracy factions, which would weaken the party while it was ongoing, and could well result in the more “moderate” members of the GOP carrying the day.

But whatever strategic or tactical errors the Democrats are making right now, it can’t be stressed enough that the continued danger posed by Donald Trump, who has declared war on American government yet remains in office, is decisively due to the great majority of Republican congressmen who refuse to do the obvious thing and insist on his immediate removal from power. This in itself is an act of treachery and complicity that echoes the president’s insurrectionary acts, and lies atop the prior complicity of so many congressmen in repeating or assenting to the president’s incendiary lie that the election was stolen. Our democratic crisis is also a Republican Party crisis.