Edsall is one of the very few people I follow on Twitter, believe it or not. But this essay is a stinker. There's a fundamental untruth in it: that if the Democrats are losing, the Republicans must be winning. It's more accurate to say that the Democrats successfully quelled their rebellion while the Republicans were overwhelmed. That, combined with the power of rural districts, leaves a lot of right-wing reactionary dead-enders with a lot of electoral power. It's a two-year or four-year or six-year cycle, though. The Tea Party has only been through two presidential elections and a midterm. I don't think the guys who voted Trump to power are going to like what they get out of it. Insurrections are oppositional in nature. "Throw the bums out" can just as easily apply to the bums you just voted in.