The action came with such rapidity and from sufficiently varied angles that, even for those who paid close attention to it, it was sometimes difficult to absorb and process one event before the next. took the lead. Late this week, two federal judges issued conflicting rulings Friday night on access to an abortive drug, creating a legal stalemate over mifepristone that seemed destined for the Supreme Court.

Americans may be exhausted from the turmoil and chaos of the Trump years, but there seems to be no letting up or backsliding. Every event of the past week seemed to heighten the overall stakes. There could be more such weeks to come. Each iteration of this dizzying past week was a reminder of just how close the upcoming election in 2024 questions and how things remain unstable.

Former President Donald Trump faces more possible indictments, federally and in Georgia, which could add both strength and weakness to his political profile while further disturbing the electorate. Republican legislatures continue to push the boundaries of abortion, with legislation calling for bans after six weeks of pregnancy at odds with public opinion. Racial politics remain front and center, and it doesn’t seem likely that any appeasement will come on that front as Republicans attack the Democratic “wake-up call” and Democrats struggle against efforts to downplay the power and voice of the black voters.

For Republicans, last week the news was almost uniformly bad, although some party members probably didn’t see it that way. The damage inflicted by past and present actions continues to define a new Republican Party, which has consolidated power in many red states but is vulnerable elsewhere — especially in states that could decide the next presidential election.

Trump’s impeachment last Tuesday in New York for criminal charges – regardless of the outcome of the case – and his subsequent speech later that evening from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, which was filled with lies, distortions and grievances , underscored how the former president remains both the dominant force in the Republican Party, a threat to democratic norms and institutions, and a compromised candidate for president in 2024.

Wisconsin voters showed again how damaging the Supreme Court ruling was last year to spill Roe vs. Wade was to the Republicans, no matter how hard they had worked to get there. Decisive Tuesday Wisconsin’s vote, which shifts the balance of power in the state’s Supreme Court from conservative to liberal, has profound implications not just for state politics, but also potentially for the nation.

In Tennessee, meanwhile, Thursday’s expulsion of two young black Democratic lawmakers from the State House took political retribution to a new level and, not coincidentally, injected race into the politics of the moment. in a way that was inevitable. After the March 27 murder of six people, including three children, at a Nashville school and protests calling for action against guns, Republican lawmakers have found a new way to shock the conscience by punishing two of the demonstrators by depriving them of their elective functions.

If there was a bright spot for the GOP, it came to North Carolina, where state Rep. Tricia Cotham said Wednesday she would quit the Democratic Party and become a Republican. The party switch gave Republicans a non-veto majority in the state House to accompany a similar majority in the state Senate, throwing yet another roadblock in Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s path.

This change in North Carolina was emblematic of the state of state politics in a country where red-blue divisions have deepened. State after state, the trifecta of control – State House, Senate and governor’s office – by one party is increasingly pushing political agendas apart. For Republicans, these political agendas, even if popular within state borders, are not necessarily representative of public opinion across the country.

There are certain guidelines in all of this. The problems around Trump have been present since he first ran for president eight years ago. His message now as then touches chords of grievance, alienation and racism that began to emerge during Barack Obama’s presidency but have erupted more dangerously since.

That Trump’s message had and continues to have more resonance than many of his critics would have imagined is something Democrats cannot underestimate. He won the presidency and then lost it, but it took a massive turnout increase for that to happen. President Biden has found his way to victory and Democrats are betting, or hoping, he can repeat that in 2024, assuming he runs for re-election. But Trump’s volatility makes the 2024 election difficult to predict, and Biden’s age and some Democratic policies offer openings Republicans can try to exploit.

There is no way to overstate how the Supreme Court changed the political mood. The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has mobilized an army of voters, led by women – and often by younger women – but which also includes men.

The mobilization helped turn what many thought was a close result in a Kansas referendum in August into a searing victory for abortion rights advocates. It helped Democrats take control of the Michigan legislature in November, along with many other contests from coast to coast. And it propelled liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz to a double-digit victory in Wisconsin on Tuesday in the race for the most expensive state Supreme Court in history.

Wisconsin has shown once again that the abortion issue has not disappeared as a force in voter education. Predictions last summer that it might not last until midterm proved inaccurate, as the abortion issue helped dash Republican hopes of emerging with a significant majority in the House and a narrow majority in the Senate. Instead, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) presides over a narrow and unstable majority while Republicans in the Senate remain in the minority as before, albeit narrowly.

That the abortion issue seems unlikely to go away anytime soon came late Friday, when judges in Texas and Washington issued conflicting rulings on the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. The Texas judge’s order, which sided with anti-abortion advocates, prevented the FDA from approving the drug, while the Washington judge, saying the drug was safe and effective, said it should continue to be available. It seemed like a metaphor for the conflicts and conflicting views that drive opposing forces in the country.

Tennessee talks about another aspect of the political makeup: Part of the Republican Party has become radicalized under Trump and is vulnerable to what Biden and Democrats have called extreme MAGA Republicans.

No one disputes what the two expelled Democratic lawmakers — and a third Democratic lawmaker, who came within a vote of the expulsion — did in Tennessee by engaging on the House floor in a larger protest on Capitol Hill. of the state broke the decorum of the State House. But against the backdrop of what happened at a nearby Christian school, another horrific episode of gun violence that has become endemic in the United States, Republican lawmakers have only looked inward and found a way. to fuel the flames of division and disagreement.

That the Republicans narrowly spared one of the three Democrats of the eviction, the one who happened to be white and female, brought further condemnation and cries back to the days of Reconstruction. When asked why she wasn’t kicked out, Democratic state Rep. Gloria Johnson replied, “It might have to do with the color of my skin.” Did any Republican voting Thursday reflect on the symbolism of their actions?

The political state of the country is calcified, as political scientists John M. Sides, Lynn Vavreck and Chris Tausanovitch wrote in “The Bitter End,” their analysis of the 2020 election — not given to big swings, but a in which small changes can mean big changes. That’s why each side now sees every election as a mini Armageddon.

In Wisconsin, changing a state Supreme Court justice could reshape politics there. In Tennessee, the expulsions of two Democrats reveal the priorities and strategies of a dominant GOP majority. In North Carolina, changing a legislative seat can energize a conservative political agenda. With Trump, everyone knows who he is, what he’s done and what he’s trying to do – that’s why the battles continue at a fever pitch.