This is what many of us can’t stand about Joe Biden. He seemingly believes that a significant amount of Republicans will suddenly revert to “classic” conservatism (i.e., opposed to liberal policies but with a semi-practical, semi-constructive attitude) if and when Trump leaves the White House.

It’s accepted doctrine that 25 years ago (starting with Gingrich in ’94, doubling down with Obama in ’09) Republicans became the crazy party. Their electoral survival will always depend upon whipping up the bumblefucks and old-school Fox watchers, and that’s certainly not going to change if Biden succeeds Trump. Embracing a notion that they’ll suddenly modify their basic nature is woefully naive.

Money quote from a 2012 Washington Post op-ed piece by Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann: “The Republican party has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”