The week I ended with an essay about the coming freak-out if the Democratic Party takes control of one or both of the House of congress, to day I’m going to write about the inverse. What if the Republican Party retains control of both?

Fivethrityeight.com currently give the odds of a Democratic success in the House and the senate at 5/6 and 1/3 respectively meaning the GOP stands at 1/6 and 2/3, or a combine odds of both events taking place 1/9. Those are steep odds but far from impossible. What would it mean if that happened?

First off and easiest to see coming is the abortion of any serious oversight of Trump’s administration. I think it would be likely that Trump would move against Sessions and implement his own ‘Saturday Night Massacre’ to kill the Muller investigation. To be sure elements of the investigation would continue, the web of suspected criminal actions extended into state jurisdiction where Trump has no ability to fire threatening district attorneys. However there are more far reaching implication that the immediate crises bedeviling the administration.

There is no greater force in politics than victory. That which wins are adopted, repeated, and enshrined. People who lead their political the power, particularly when the odds are against them, become the standards for the party and its philosophy. Ronal Reagan set the tone, standard, and expectation of every Republican that followed him for thirty years after his 1980 election. From the lowliest office all the way up to the Presidency every GOP candidate scrapped and clawed to wear the mantel of a ‘Reagan Republican.’ yet, just sixteen years before his election the brand of Republican politics Reagan championed had been soundly thrashed at the ballot box, an indication just how much things can change in a relatively short period of time.

This past weekend when I described the current political winds as being fairly strongly anti-republican a conservative friend said that they were ‘anti-Trump.’ That is correct but currently Trump isthe Republican Party. Those who stood against him are either being driven from the party or reinventing themselves as supporter to ward off challenges from Trump’s wing of the party. He is no longer a single candidate; he is a philosophy; a wing; a movement within the GOP. The question before us if this an aberration of the moment, or is this the future of the Republican Party?

November’s election does not have Trump on the ballot but it is a referendum on him, his character, and his presidency. Should the GOP pull off their 1 in 9 chance then the odds will favor Trump re-election in 2020, impacting not only his race, but also contests up and down the ballot with the census and redistricting hanging on the outcome. Trump and Trumpism could very become the replacement for Reaganism for decades. Instead of Saint Ronnie it could very well be Saint Donald and that candidate after candidate fight, and claw to wear his mantle, and the politics of the party his shadow conforms to Trump’s personality as it did following Reagan. This is a possible consequence of this year’s election, not just the next two years, not just the next presidential administration, but also the very course the Republican Party until the middle of century.

As someone who voted for Reagan I tell you that this is no election to sit on your hands and hide in foolish cynicism masquerading as wisdom.