For this reason—the awe and devotion of the Trump base and the equity you could purchase in it with your own acts of awe and devotion to him—a portion of Republicans in Congress (again, understanding that there was no danger that anything they did would have any practical effect at all) rushed to stand by the illusory election challenge.

At the same time—because this was the end, and the king was practically dead, and precisely because of the vexing awe and devotion so many party regulars had for him—other Republicans were taking this opportunity to try to put a stake in his heart. For a month, Mitch McConnell had been nearly monosyllabic about the election challenge, withholding congratulations from his old colleague Joe Biden, with whom he’d had a long and even fond relationship, but offering no more support to Trump than not publicly rejecting his election challenge, itself a clear message. McConnell had spent a happy 2020 Election Night watching Senate seats he had every right to expect to lose hold (and with Perdue in Georgia a whisker from 50 percent, it looked like the Senate would hold). His only annoyance with the evening was to have Trump do better than expected—although, aside from a worrisome hour or so during the evening, McConnell had little doubt that Trump was going to lose.

Asked by a variety of friends (each of whom knew the answer) which he would prefer, a Trump victory and a Senate majority or a Trump loss taking the Senate with him, McConnell confirmed, quite as though the question did not have to be asked, the latter. McConnell had already absolved himself of the loss, sending out Kevin McLaughlin, his handpicked head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, days before the election to blame the Trump stain for the loss—another issue of bitter enmity for the president, who believed that the election had clearly shown that he had saved or nearly saved the Senate for McConnell, quite arguably true.