Washington | For a day or two or maybe a week after the can-you-believe-this-is-happening-in-America events of a year ago, there were those who thought that the shock to the system might upend politics in a profound way.

That the country might speak as one against an attempt to overturn democracy. That the tribal divisions of the era might be overcome by a shared sense of revulsion. That a president who encouraged a mob that attacked Congress in a vain bid to hold on to power might be ostracised or at least fade into exile.