Even though the Capitol Hill rioters are being rounded up and post-election tensions have died down, America remains at a dangerous crossroads. The Senate's receipt of a House article of impeachment against former President Donald Trump threatens to ignite new protests from Trump's most militant supporters and destroy any chance of achieving unity for the sake of healing the nation.

Republicans might argue that healing can't begin as long as impeachment is on the table, but a failure to deliver justice for his role in inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot could only serve to divide the nation further. For a party that constantly touted its law-and-order credentials during the campaign, Republicans can't seem to summon the courage of their own convictions when it comes to applying them to Trump.

If the party fails to fully repudiate Trump, the GOP risks permanently losing a major chunk of disaffected Republicans who can no longer rationalize the former president's abhorrent behavior. A return to moderation and commitment to bipartisanship is the leadership's only hope of recovery. They lost the White House and control of the Senate exactly because most Americans want nothing more to do Trumpism.

None of this lets the Democrats off the hook. Yes, Trump was the primary instigator of the political divisions splitting the nation, but the Democratic Party's amplification of its most extreme-left activists, including protesters who seized and occupied an entire Seattle neighborhood last year during the Black Lives Matter protests, is what gave Trump the ability to mobilize his radical forces. The Democrats, too, must rededicate themselves to moderation and bipartisanship.

Trump's wacko true believers in Congress, including the likes of Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, must be disabused of the myth that massive election fraud occurred on Nov. 3. They have never provided proof of their fraud allegations. Having repeated the lie so many times, their supporters believed them. Cruz and Hawley then cited those beliefs, based on a lie, to justify their Electoral College challenge on Jan. 6.

If the deranged Trumpian members of Congress cannot be reasoned with, they must be isolated and excised like the cancerous growth they are.

The razor thin margins by which Democrats Jon Ossoff and and Rev. Ralph Warnock won their Senate seats in Georgia attests to the American electorate's deep ambivalence about Democratic control of both houses of Congress. Georgia's vote was not a mandate for America to take a hard-left turn. It was a mandate to eradicate Trumpism and heal the nation.

Finding a way for the healing to begin will be hard, but the American people need and require both parties to recommit to moderation and bipartisanship — before the radicals can gain another deadly foothold.

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