Unbearable Knowing

Two years ago, almost exactly, I wrote a piece expressing a sort of resigned panic about the state of the republic, and essentially asking the reader — but really, I suppose, asking the gods — to tell me how I was wrong. At the time, I was afraid that I was being melodramatic and overstating the problem.

But I wasn’t. Not even a little.

“If we’ve learned nothing else from the past decade,” I wrote, “it’s that if Republicans can’t win through persuasion, they’ll simply rewrite the rules. Th...