Joe Biden today has taken over as the 46th president of the United States. The 45th president, Donald Trump, continues to sulk over his electoral repudiation (and, presumably, frets over his looming legal problems).

One-term presidents seldom shine in historical retrospect, and Trump — who spent his four years as president defying traditional norms and battering the integrity of our institutions — is almost certainly destined with the passage of time to be regarded as one of the worst, if not the worst, chief executives in the nation’s history.

How long it will take to repair the damage Trump did to the American political system depends less on his successor in office but on Trump’s partisan allies.

One of the most astounding facts of the past four years is how rapidly and thoroughly Trump took over the highest levels of the Republican Party. Senators and presidential hopefuls Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, all of whom denounced Trump as wholly unqualified for the presidency during the 2016 primaries, spent the next four years genuflecting to their new master, with Cruz going so far as to attempt to sabotage the Electoral College on Trump’s behalf.

The Republican Party, pre-Trump, stood for free trade, fiscal restraint and strong international alliances. Trump unilaterally reversed those stands. He ignited tariff wars, expanded the deficit and weakened NATO, and the party went along with his whims with minimal complaint. He also openly embraced white supremacy, which the party had long tolerated but not acknowledged.

For months there has been speculation that the “never-Trump” faction of the Republican Party — electorally vocal but not a genuine governmental factor — might split off to form a traditional conservative party. This weekend there were reports that Trump himself is contemplating abandoning the GOP to create the “Patriot Party.”

So the Grand Old Party, having lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections, is at a stressful crossroads. Will it remain one party, or splinter into electorally irrelevant fragments? If it survives, will it continue on Trump’s course of nationalistic, conspiratorial authoritarianism, or will it revert to its previous principles?

If the former, can the American political system survive a major party that openly appeals to white supremacy and refuses to admit losing an election? If the latter, would the electorate believe the sincerity of another conversion?

The answers are vital to the future of the American Experiment. And they have little to do with Joe Biden.

— Mankato Free Press