I knew full well that a Trump presidency would be terribly toxic and costly in terms of racism and xenophobia, judicial appointments, etc., but there is much I didn’t foresee:

-I didn’t envision 45 actually winning the presidency, but it happened (with some outside help).
-I didn’t envision the extent to which the Republican Party would eventually throw its full weight behind a dangerous, utterly corrupt con-man of questionable sanity.
-I didn’t envision the extent of Russian meddling, but it happened, and it continues.
-I didn’t envision the ho-hum, in-your-face visibility of lawbreaking in plain sight, but it’s happening.

Americans have been ideologically “weaponized” against one another, and thrown into a partisan divide like no other time, except perhaps the Civil War.

There are now chiseled-in-stone, hardline stances on issues from whch neither side will ever budge: climate change and the importance of science, immigration, gun safety legislation, women’s reproductive rights, quality healthcare, on and on.

How much longer will a majority of Americans be content to live under minority Republican rule, due to right-wing exploitation of the Electoral College and Senate apportionment (not to mention gerrymandering and voter suppression)? A citizen of Wyoming, the smallest state by population, has approximately 67 times the voting-power of a citizen in California, the largest state by population. And this particular disparity among the states is only increasing.
Example: population/representation/voting power in seven combined Republican states:
Alaska 737 thousand
Idaho 1.7 million
Montana 1.1 million
North Dakota 760 thousand
South Dakota, 882 thousand
Utah 3.2 million
Wyoming 578 thousand
TOTAL combined population: 9 million
TOTAL number of combined senators: 14
vs.
California, Democratic state, population: 40 million
TOTAL number of senators: 2

Where do things go from here? How much can one group take from the other? All of which is to say, I have no actual idea how an actual schism would unfold. But the situation (even if Trump’s gone) cannot continue in this matter. Our democracy can only withstand so much chaos.