This isn’t going away.

This week, the congressional committee investigating last year’s Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol will continue to present its findings to the nation. But the forces that created the riot, and the associated legal maneuverings, will go on for much longer.

I don’t think an actual coup is particularly likely. But that doesn’t mean there’s no risk of future violence or political brinkmanship.

It’s true that there have been some consequences. More than 800 people have been charged with offenses related to the riot. Unlike most incarcerated people, however, they have members of Congress advocating for them. And while many major corporations have stopped funding lawmakers who voted to overturn the election results, some have since turned the money hose back on. Apparently, for the likes of Cigna and Eli Lilly, tax cuts are more important than the future of American democracy.

The 147 Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election illustrate an important point. The danger to democracy doesn’t just come from rioters in tactical gear or faux-Viking headwear. It also comes from people in suits who twist our legal system to their advantage.

The most important person, of course, is former President Donald Trump. He shows no sign of admitting the fact that he lost the 2020 election. While some lawmakers have urged the Department of Justice to pursue charges against the former president, it’s unclear if they will do so.

However, Trump isn’t the only reason this happened. I talked to Joachim Savelsberg, a sociologist here at the University of Minnesota who studies memories of mass violence. He said while Trump deserves the blame for kicking off this election denial, “we would also fall short if we thought that once, hopefully, Donald Trump goes away, that then the doubt would disappear.”

He pointed to the long-standing finding in social science that Americans have been losing trust in most major institutions. Without this decline in trust, Savelsberg said, Trump wouldn’t have even been elected in the first place.

This declining trust acted hand-in-hand with polarization to push us to this point. David Samuels, a University political scientist who studies polarization and democracy in Brazil, said that many countries have been experiencing elevated political polarization, and the U.S. is no exception.

David Knoke is a sociologist at the University who studies collective action using computer modeling. His research on the Capitol riot found that extremist groups likely chose to attack because they outnumbered law enforcement. “In retrospect,” Knoke wrote in an email to the Minnesota Daily, “the National Guard should have been massively mobilized and set up a defensive perimeter well away from the building.” However, he noted, this “was not in Trump and the coup-plotters’ interests.”

Polling data shows that large majorities of ordinary Republicans continue to believe in the “Big Lie.” They’re unlikely to find pushback from major figures in their party – last year, the vast majority of congressional Republicans blocked a truly bipartisan, 9/11-style commission on the riot. Later, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested five members to serve on the Jan. 6 select committee. Absurdly, this included three members who voted against certification of the election. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) disallowed these three from serving on the committee investigating their own subversion of democracy, so McCarthy pulled all of his suggestions.

So instead, we’ve got a rump committee. This committee has done tremendous work, and I can say the few Republicans on it are genuinely being brave. But it is inherently compromised in the eyes of many, thanks to Republican leaders’ unwillingness to create a truly bipartisan alternative.

However, sometimes, all it takes is a few well-placed people to make the right decision. I’m no fan of former Vice President Mike Pence, but I can admit that his certification of the vote that day had massive implications for our democracy. I’m not exactly a Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) stan either, but her decision to be on this committee is also quite brave.

Unfortunately, there will likely be fewer Mike Pences and Liz Cheneys in the future. The 2020 election has become a flashpoint in Republican primaries all over the country. Many denialists are winning, although some have softened up post-primary. And given Trump’s continuing attacks on Pence, I think next time, he will prioritize selecting a more loyal vice president.

An important point I wish more high-level Republicans understood is that subverting democracy rarely works out in the long run, even for those who do it. “The nice thing about democracy,” said Samuels, “is that we replace bullets with ballots.” The orderly and peaceful transition of power benefits not only the winners, but also the losers because the losers don’t get shot.

Elected officials aren’t the only ones who could be more redpilled next time around. Despite the anti-establishment rhetoric of his campaign, Trump still needed people to staff his administration. There were some extremists among them, but many staffers weren’t entirely loyal to the president. Some of them were opposed to some of the things he wanted to do. Some even told him that his plans to overturn the election were illegal.

But the lawyer who wrote the memo outlining Trump’s final, last-ditch strategy is a different breed. John Eastman, who actually told Trump this strategy was illegal and sought a pardon, works for the Claremont Institute. Claremont and other loyalists might be a source of staff for a future Trump administration. In addition to Eastman’s memo, Claremonters were the primary minds behind Trump’s “1776 Report.” Over the course of the Trump administration, Claremont has only gotten more and more pro-Trump and authoritarian. Overall, this means the staff of a second Trump administration might feel more loyal to the president and less likely to pull a Pence and fail him in his hour of need.

The American people are very lucky Jan. 6 and the election-denialist campaign that came before were led incompetently and with dissenters in key positions. Next time, we might not be so lucky.