Meanwhile, liberal complaints about the electoral college are also starting to get heard by the candidates. On Monday night, Warren called for eliminating the electoral college, which enabled Trump to be elected in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000 despite losing the national popular vote. Of course, those elections were fought knowing going in that the electoral college would decide the outcome. The electoral college, like the Senate itself, is a way to protect the interest of states against an increasingly powerful federal government.

Getting rid of the electoral college would thus be a forerunner to getting rid of the Senate itself and moving to a purely majoritarian system in which a party could sweep into power and implement a radical agenda without much resistance. Clearly, that’s a benefit to the people who want to dramatically expand government.

There were two ways that Democrats could have reacted to Trump.

One would have been to campaign on restoring norms, strengthening institutions, and returning to a more stable form of politics. The other was to use Trumpism as an excuse to embrace radicalism and tear down the institutions that they don’t like. It’s becoming increasingly clear in which direction they’re heading.