If you are part of the approximately 35% of the U.S. population that thinks that Donald Trump hung the moon, can do no wrong, and should be president for life, rejoice in the fact that he has a vice grip hold on the Republican party. They may be scared to death of him and genuinely wish that he would just “go away into that dark night,” but judging by the fact that more than 120 Republicans in the House of Representatives signed onto a lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to overturn the results of November’s fair and free election, they’re going to keep doing what he wants. If you’re part of the rest of the country, however, Trump’s continued dominance of the Republican party should scare the pants off of you.

Here’s where we are. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 to Hillary Clinton by 3,000,000 votes but still won the White House, and for the last 4 years has dominated the US political dialogue in a way that no president in the history of our country ever has. Now, he has lost the presidential election by 6,000,00 votes, over 4% of the total, but has done what many feared he would – he refuses to accept a 244 year foundation of American policy; a smooth transition of power following a loss in an election. And ever since the loss, his base has formed in behind him not realizing what a detriment to our country, our value system, our democracy, or our constitution that they are causing.

Trump’s 35% base may disagree, but the health of our democracy matters more than temporary political power. A political system is only as strong as the people’s belief in it, and Trump’s attempts to undermine the public’s confidence in the results of the election undermine the very foundations of our democracy. The only reason the United States has lasted as long as it has is because people on both sides have accepted the outcomes of elections whether or not they liked them. The only departure from that tradition in the 1860s left hundreds of thousands of Americans dead.

It’s clear that Trump isn’t just going to go away. He’s going to continue to fuel the fires of conspiracy theories and white supremacy once he’s finally removed from office, and considering his absolute dominance over the Republican party, it’s looking more likely than not that he’ll run again in 2024. Even if he loses or doesn’t run, his ability to turn out his base, which makes up a significant percentage of the Republican electorate, will make him a Republican kingmaker for years to come.

Now we are faced with at least 8-10 more years where one man actively working to destroy our democracy is going to control not only his 35% base, but the whole of the Republican party. There have only been two verbally or policy based Republican challengers to him over the last 4 years; Jeff Flake and Mitt Romney. Everyone else, Ted Cruz, Lyndsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, every single Republican, but the two I mention, have laid down like the frightened, spineless, sycophants they are. And I fear, that will not change so long as Donald Trump has his Twitter account and his relationships with FOX, OANN, and Sinclair Broadcasting stays strong.

This is the darkest part of my concern: So long as Trump continues to maintain his death grip on the Republican party and his 73 million believers, in the White House or not, he will stymie any efforts towards reducing or eliminating the divide in our country, getting Americans back to work, finding a way to mitigate the political and financial divide between the haves and the have not’s, getting real legislative work done that will serve the needs of the masses, not just we wealthy.

In the end, Trump cares about only one single thing in the whole damned universe: Himself! Not the people, not the Republican party, and absolutely not the America that he wants to make great again. We NEVER stopped being great, we have just become divided, and Donald Trump has done nothing but enhance and exacerbate that. In spades! Say your prayers for our country. The Donald is not going to go away, and that is not a good thing.