The GOP civil war broke out in earnest just a few hours after Clinton’s unexpectedly narrow victory in the election. The establishment blamed Trump and his white nationalist supporters for the loss; Trump, for his part, insisted that he would have won but for the lack of support from the “cuckservatives.”
Never one to take defeat lying down, Trump almost immediately started touring red states and holding huge rallies at which he bashed the media, the establishment, and the “rigged” election more and more ferociously. The rallies became increasingly angry and violent. There was open talk of creating a third party, and even of a coup attempt.
Clinton saw opportunities here. Her inaugural address combined olive branches to the Republican establishment (she focused on infrastructure and corporate tax reform) with a demand that the leadership openly renounce Trump and his violence. Ryan and McConnell, desperate to keep the party together, spoke only in vague generalities about Trump and appealed to the base by promising relentless pressure on the new administration. New investigations were promised, no support was provided even for GOP-friendly initiatives, and the blockade of Merrick Garland continued.
A showdown loomed over the debt ceiling. Would the GOP finally splinter for good over funding the government? For their part, facing a very difficult election in 2018 with a largely exhausted party, some Democrats were starting to murmur that it would almost have been better if Trump had prevailed, because only power would give him the opportunity to finally discredit himself and his cause. I say “almost,” because he might blow up the country in the interim; it wasn’t worth it.