Magazine Work

At a moment when Democrats have begun to dominate the affluent, college-educated vote that for decades formed the cornerstone of the Republican coalition, perhaps the only thing that can keep the GOP competitive is an infusion of support from the very middle- and working-class Hispanics who were, at this moment in history, supposed to deliver the Democrats a foolproof majority.

The plane had slid off the runway and sliced through a concrete track designed to buffer us from tragedy. Dozens of rescue vehicles were now screaming across the airport in our direction, sirens blaring in the brisk October evening; first responders would soon climb the back stairs and shout for us to evacuate immediately. “I didn’t realize it,” Mike Pence told us of the accident, “until I saw mud on the front windows.” Of course, it’s impossible to survey the wreckage from inside the plane.

Despite all of these arrows pointing toward disaster — and despite Trump encouraging his followers to descend on Washington, to agitate against certification of Biden’s victory — not a single Republican I’d spoken with in the weeks leading up to the Capitol siege sounded anxious. The notion of real troublemaking simply didn’t compute. Many of these Republicans have kept so blissfully ensconced in the MAGA embrace that they’ve chosen not to see its ugly side.

On his third day at work, Peter Meijer pulled a smoke hood over his face and fled the U.S. House of Representatives as insurgents broke into the lower chamber. They were attempting to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. A week later, Meijer voted to impeach the president of his party—and set in motion the destruction of a once-promising political career.