It’s not theater; it’s an attempt to see how far they can push before people in their own party finally say that they’ve had enough.
The problem is, everyone in their party is standing around looking at each other, knowing that Trump just received nearly 72 million votes - 72 million. Disastrous COVID response and impeachment be damned. If Republicans were looking for a safe way to abandon Trump, they didn’t find it in the election that he lost, but very nearly won anyway.
The Republicans can’t abandon him because an overwhelming majority of the 72 million people who voted for him, at minimum, believe it’s possible that Trump, not Biden, is the real winner. And even if they accept that Biden got more votes, I’m sure they’ll complain that Democrats never gave Trump a fair chance, so why should they treat Biden fairly.
This is going to get nasty.