Republicans are not much given to quoting Lenin, but they might be in a mood to sympathise with his supposed observation that “there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen”.

It feels like a decade’s worth of misery rained down on Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration last week and there’s no telling whether this week will bring a respite or more of the same. The damaging stories have come so thick and fast that there has hardly been time to take in one before the arrival of the next.

Donald Trump’s firing of the FBI director, James Comey (perhaps to quash Comey’s investigation of his campaign), was followed by the news that Trump had divulged highly classified intelligence to the Russian government.

Then it was off to the races with the Comey memo (apparently alleging that Trump tried to get the FBI director to call off his investigation into former national security adviser, Michael Flynn); revelations about Flynn having been in effect a foreign agent of Turkey, news of previously undisclosed contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia; the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian meddling; and on and on and on. Rumour has it that firings of top aides are imminent, while others in the administration are said to be polishing their CVs or putting pen to tell-all memoirs.

As I write this, the New York Times is reporting that Trump told Russian officials that he fired Comey because “he was crazy, a real nut job” and that his removal had taken away the “great pressure” Trump faced because of Russia. Who knows what revelation tomorrow may bring?

It’s too soon to tell what the long-term impact of all of this upheaval will be. Many historical-minded commentators have suggested parallels with the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon, while others have pointed toward the Iran-Contra affair, which ultimately didn’t detract from Ronald Reagan’s popularity. The possibility of Trump’s impeachment, once discussed only on wild-eyed, leftist websites, is now a matter of serious consideration in the media and some Democratic circles.

At this point, the major similarity to Watergate is that a lot of Americans who in years past never talked about politics now talk about it all the time and in settings where politics rarely used to come up. Politics, it’s said, is displacing talk of sports and sex in such unlikely venues as bars, nail salons and strip clubs. The American Psychological Association recently warned that people increasingly feel “stressed and cynical” on account of political arguments in the workplace, sapping employee morale and performance.

On an anecdotal level, politics seems to be sundering friendships on social media platforms such as Facebook as well as in real life. Dating websites also report that fewer people are willing to consider relationships with people who don’t share their political beliefs. On Match.com, 60% of singles said they were less open to dating across party lines than they were two years ago. One woman interviewed by a Washington, DC, radio station insisted that she couldn’t date a supporter of the opposing party because “when somebody has beliefs that you think are just morally wrong, it feels like a personal attack on you”.

The phenomenon of political polarisation predates Trump, of course. In many ways, it goes back to the Nixon administration, when conservative aide Patrick Buchanan recommended that Republicans exploit tensions of race and class and use controversial social and cultural issues such as abortion to split the Democratic coalition. Such tactics could “cut the Democratic party and country in half”, he wrote to Nixon in 1971, and “we would have far the larger half”.

Another Nixon adviser, Roger Ailes, who died last week at age 77, also contributed to polarization by creating Fox News as a conservative counter to the mainstream news networks that took pride in their objectivity. More and more Americans now get their news from nakedly ideological outlets, which makes it less likely that they’ll encounter opposing views – or be able to distinguish truth from falsehood.

Trump ran a more divisive campaign than Nixon ever contemplated and, indeed, turned it into the sort of reality-TV spectacle that has driven all of those shouting matches at the office water cooler, Facebook unfriendings and failed first dates. Buchanan’s prediction has proved true: Republicans have cut the country in half and ended up with the bigger piece, as they now control a majority of both houses of Congress and governorships as well as the White House.

The continuing benefits of polarisation for Republicans have been evident even during the past difficult week. A recent poll shows that even as Trump’s overall approval rating continues to slide, 84% of his supporters still approve of the job he’s doing (although the share who strongly approve is waning). Many of his adherents simply dismiss the damaging stories about Trump as “fake news” purveyed by a biased liberal media. They’re likely to continue to support the Republicans so long as they believe that Democrats represent a diabolical threat to the nation.

Many Republicans also point to accomplishments that wouldn’t have happened under a Hillary Clinton presidency. Foremost among these is Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation as supreme court justice, restoring the conservative majority. Trump voters, whose primary issue was immigration, are heartened by the news that arrests of immigrants have soared even as crossings at the Mexican border have dropped. And Trump signed more executive orders in his first 100 days in office than any president since Franklin Roosevelt, although most of those orders signalled Trump’s intention to reverse President Obama’s legacy on the environment and other issues.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ousted FBI director, James Comey. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

But it turns out there is also a political cost to dividing the American people into hostile and mutually uncomprehending tribes. The Republican decision to lead off the legislative year by repealing the previous president’s namesake healthcare reform galvanised a sort of Tea Party movement of the left, making it unwise for Republican legislators to attend town hall meetings with their constituents or for Democratic legislators to co-operate on significant legislation.

For most of American history, major bills passed Congress thanks to a coalition of moderates from both parties. If bipartisanship is now dead, Republicans will need just about every vote from their own ranks to pass anything consequential. This has handed effective veto power to the House Freedom Caucus, a group of 30-odd Republicans (all men) on the far-right fringe, who have trampled party norms by voting as a bloc. They opposed the first iteration of the House healthcare bill as not going far enough to repeal Obamacare. When provisions to appease them were inserted into the second iteration, it nearly failed by going too far for the remaining Republican moderates. This dynamic, combined with chaos and incompetence in the White House, now casts serious doubt on the more ambitious items on the Republicans’ legislative wish list, including tax reform and infrastructure repair.

Traditionally, it has been seen as the president’s job to work with his own party in Congress as well as the opposition to form the majorities required to pass legislation and then to sell that legislation to a majority of the public. Trump signally failed in this responsibility even before this week of troubles and his job will be much harder now. There’s no way of knowing whether the newly appointed special counsel will find a “smoking gun” that will completely unravel Trump’s presidency, but his credibility and standing as a party leader have both surely taken a big hit.

Like Milton’s Lucifer, politicians would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. Republicans in Congress still have the majority. They’re likely to stick by Trump, even if the scandals hanging over the White House worsen, unless his unpopularity seems to threaten their own re-elections. But it does appear that whatever coat-tails Trump once possessed have vanished. Certainly, Republicans are ducking out of once-coveted television appearances for fear of having to defend the president, while few are lining up to have him come speak in their states or districts. The Trump presidency may have taken a mortal injury or it may turn out to have been merely a flesh wound. What seems more probable is that last week marks an end to the collective delusion that government is somehow unlike other highly technical fields of human endeavour, so simple, despite its apparent complexities, that even a child could run it.

The laws of political gravity may now begin to reassert themselves. White House officials may once again understand that gravity, prudence, probity and diplomacy are valuable and essential qualities in a president. Legislators may remember that super-majorities are aberrations rather than the norm, and cross-aisle co-operation and compromise are essential to the legislative process rather than base treachery. Voters may wise up to the hucksters who try to persuade them that everyone who supports the opposing party is Evil Incarnate. They may come to prefer the passage of modest but sensible legislation to the promise of future utopias and government that is boring but functional to can’t-miss-TV or gladiatorial entertainment.

Then again, these lessons may come too late for Trump – and for the rest of us.