My fellow Americans: It is my honor today to announce the formation of a new political party, which I am calling “the Republican Party.”

You can be forgiven for thinking, Wait, don’t we already have one of those? But please. Under Donald Trump, the Republican Party, at least as we once understood it, has become a fantastical entity, a creature not wholly unlike the Abominable Snowman, or the Chupacabra, or the mythical Squonk of central Pennsylvania, the imaginary creature that spends its days deep in the forest, weeping in despair at its own hideousness.

“There is no Republican Party,” said John Boehner, a former Republican speaker of the House, back in April. “There’s a Trump Party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”

While the Republican Party naps, the thing that has arisen in its place bears an eerie resemblance to another party in American history, one that we thought was gone for good. But more about that in a moment.