Reeling from defeat in the midterm elections, Republicans have started to entertain the following hope: The liberal base will force Democrats to nominate somebody totally crazy as their presidential candidate in 2020, ensuring the re-election of President Trump.

The dream that a victorious party will be consumed by radicals, overreach, and become unelectable, has long been a refuge for parties following a major loss. It was the hope Republicans held out after a drubbing in 2006, and that Democrats had after being massacred in 2014. Yet in the presidential elections that followed, those hopes were dashed, as voters sent former President Barack Obama and Trump to the White House.