Four years ago, we failed to hold Trump accountable. Here’s how we can do so over the next four years.

It’s been 210 years since the United States Capitol was attacked by troops of a foreign army. It’s been four years since the United States Capitol was attacked by an army of Americans.

The first attack on the Capitol was launched by a foreign monarch. The second attack was instigated by the president of the United States.

Unlike the first, the second, the one in which Americans attacked their own country, was deadly. And in less than two weeks, the man who set it in motion will again take the oath of office he violated four years ago and move back into the White House.

If Vice President Mike Pence had not called his friend and former Vice President Dan Quayle to shore up Pence’s belief that he had no constitutional authority to reject the electoral results submitted by the states, the election of 2020 might have been dismissed altogether, with a defeated Donald Trump refusing to leave office.

Some of Trump’s return to power can be traced to public disaffection with his successor, some to disaffection with the direction of the Democratic Party, and some to attempts by the U.S. Supreme Court and executive branch lawyers in the U.S. Justice Department and the White House Office of Legal Counsel to elevate the presidency to the status of a de facto monarchy with nonconstitutional grants of presidential immunity and policies holding sitting presidents safe from criminal prosecution.

Failure to move expeditiously to hold President Trump accountable for the attempt to block the transfer of power after his defeat in 2020 made Trump’s return possible.

But it did not make his return inevitable.

Voters in the United States, as in democracies across the globe, opted to change course from systems and policies they felt no longer addressed their concerns and aspirations.

What this means is that, as with all elections in which the in-party is ousted and the out-party is granted power, there will be a great many policies and actions forthcoming that Democrats and a good many Republicans and independents will find appalling.

The question is, what should those who did not and do not support Trump do now?

Some are advocating a scorched-earth agenda — wage war against everything that comes from the Trump White House and the Republican-led House and Senate.

This is seen as a moral calling. And in some cases, it will be: There will be proposals that one cannot morally abide (it should be noted, however, that this is a maxim that is applicable no matter which side wins the electoral wars and which side loses: even people temperamentally inclined toward common ground and compromise will have lines they will not cross). I suggest, however, that this approach — fight to the death over every issue — is itself an abandonment of the democratic principle.

Not every policy one disagrees with is a call to take up arms.

Years ago, the foundation of American constitutional government began to crumble.

Instead of every member of Congress voting according to his or her own conscience and judgment, the member’s singular and distinct constituency, and a studied understanding of the Constitution, members of Congress began to act like members of a Parliament (a governing system the founders pointedly rejected).

Suddenly it was perceived as a failure of leadership if all members of a party — Southerners and New Englanders, representatives of big cities and rural villages — did not march in lockstep.

Instead of outcomes derived from deliberation, our politics became a zero-sum game.

In elections, there are winners and losers, but both nationally and in every congressional district, there are large numbers of citizens whose votes were cast for the person who did not finish first, but they, too, are the elected official’s constituents.

In states with closed primaries, sore loser laws, and no runoffs, the “winner” may not come close to being a true representative of the majority of the people he or she is to represent.

A member of Congress who emulates W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s famous parody in the operetta H.M.S. Pinafore (“I always voted at my party’s call/ And I never thought of thinking for myself at all”) does not belong in public office.

The biggest check on authoritarian rule is noncompliance. For those who hold positions of authority, that simply means: do your job.

For the United States Senate, for example, that means a serious vetting of presidential nominees and rejection of those not fit for the jobs for which they’ve been proposed.

It also means that members of Congress should disregard pressure from a president or their own chosen party leader to vote contrary to their own conscience and judgment.

It means embracing the deliberative processes of a functional democracy.

It means taking your job, and your oath, seriously.

Here’s what I think we should do.

On big issues, the issues that carry significant legal and moral weight, write, speak, and organize to try to win (best outcome) or lay down a marker (not a meaningless achievement).

But otherwise, accept that electoral outcomes have consequences, and the best way to keep things from going too far off the rails is to be willing, if possible, to negotiate in good faith to make a decision either somewhat better or somewhat less bad. Oppose, but within bounds; not everything is a call to burn the house down.

Look honestly at the factors that caused voters to opt for a candidate many disliked rather than keep Democrats in power. Understand their worries, grievances, fears, hopes, and, yes, their feelings of being culturally and economically ignored or dismissed.

It’s hard for advocates to step back from the aggressive postures that have been at the heart of their daily existence, nor should legitimate causes be set aside, but overaggressiveness often leads to outcomes that are the exact opposite of what one sought to achieve.

Reform Congress. Party-first philosophy has resulted in both political parties supporting increased presidential power and an abandonment of Congress’ constitutional obligations. No one can foresee who will be president eight years from now, or 12, or 20.

Oppose, but within bounds; not everything is a call to burn the house down.

So, both parties should act now to reclaim Congress’ authority over taxing, spending, and the federal budget, over war power, over the judicial and military confirmation process. Make it harder, as the Constitution intended, for the head of the executive branch to behave like a king (no, the president is not the head of government; he or she is the head of one branch and not the one that makes the laws).

With Trump in office, Democrats have a great incentive to return to the constitutional model of a checked presidency; with the possibility that a Democrat will again succeed Trump, as happened in 2020, Republicans have the same incentive.

I chair a Princeton University initiative, including leading experts from 19 universities, which has mapped out a series of reforms that would allow Congress to seize back powers that have been usurped by presidents of both political parties with the approval of their fellow partisans.

The greatest fear accompanying a Trump presidency (a fear I share) is the further deterioration of constitutional boundaries and institutional norms and the further solidifying of the concept of members of Congress as staff or advisers to a president of the same party.

Even more than I worry about what a Trump presidency might bring, I worry about the demise of deliberative democracy.

When Trump or his supporters and appointees, many of whom seem singularly unqualified for the jobs they’ll be assigned, actually do things that are foolhardy, morally repugnant, or dangerous to our democratic future, we should speak out and act up.

But otherwise, stop obsessing about the man — he has already taken up too much air space — and concentrate on reviving and strengthening the constitutional democracy that was what at one time made America truly exceptional.

We can relitigate the 2024 election endlessly, call friends in a panic every time the orange-tanned man repeats what he has said a hundred times before, or we can look toward, and act to build, a different future than the one that brought us to this point.

Today is his. Tomorrow can be ours.

Mickey Edwards, a former eight-term Republican member of Congress, is the John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. visiting professor at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.