There’s definitely an effect way down-ballot. Here in San Jose, the local races have long had a surface veneer of non-partisanship: No party affiliation, and mostly boiler-plate campaign literature.

Until this year. I’m voting for the woman who had the integrity to plaster “Democrat” and cartoon donkeys all over her campaign flyer. She’s not the only one running locally as a conspicuous Democrat. The brand suddenly has a lot of value, thanks to Donald Trump.

It’s a reminder of the time long past when the political parties weren’t so extremely-well-sorted ideologically, when you could talk sensibly of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. Maybe a positive result of Trumpism will be a resorting of the two parties along social lines, this time the angry white nationalists versus everybody else. Maybe the Democratic Party will be a giant circus tent for a few election cycles, riding a supermajority, until inevitably we return to rough parity between two parties, whatever they stand for by then.

Ever feel like Kirk and Spock trying to make sense of the shifting histories foretold by the tricorder in City on the Edge of Forever?