Wrong. As soon as a tax-reform bill begins to be debated, we’re likely to see the very same fissures open up between conservative movement stalwarts and libertarians on the one hand and moderates on the other. The former will fight for the largest possible upper-income and investment tax cuts while the latter will fret about deficits, demand tax relief for the middle class, and favor modest revenue increases over spending cuts. And once again, compromise will prove elusive.

The dissention has even spread into foreign policy, an area on which Republicans once stood shoulder to shoulder. If you want to get a sense of how deeply divided the party now is on the most basic questions of America’s role in the world, take a look at last week’s rancorous argument on Fox News between Tucker Carlson and Max Boot. Carlson upholds the Trumpian line, savaging the neocon Boot for supporting the Iraq War and favoring military intervention in Libya and Syria, while Boot excoriates Carlson for displaying insufficient alarm about Russia’s efforts at meddling in the 2016 presidential election. An outsider observing the exchange would conclude that these two pundits were ideological enemies from deeply opposed political parties, not representatives of competing factions within the same party.