So far, so good. But, in terms of results in the voting booth, the calculations get much tougher. Democrats can pretty much count on retaking the House this year. (If they fail at this, it’ll set off a major round of soul-searching and recriminations, to which all of us will eagerly contribute. I already have mine prepared. But let’s wait and see.) Whether they can count on similar good fortune in 2020 is another story.

With every election, there’s the play-it-safe faction that wants to move to the middle and the go-big faction that wants to move toward the base. The calculations are different every time, but the go-big faction tends to prevail when the Oval Office has an unpopular incumbent. Republicans decided they could risk nominating Ronald Reagan in 1980, and Democrats decided they could take a chance on a boldy left Barack Obama in 2008. Eyeing 2020, many Democrats believe they’ll have a failing Trump and a remarkable opportunity. Others feel the threat of Trump is so great that they’re best off trimming their larger ambitions and putting together enough of a right-left coalition simply to get him out of office.

If that were the sum of the dilemmas, things would be easy, similar to how they were in the old days. But 2016 wound up shining a light on previously latent rifts and widening them considerably. Donald Trump showed us that a large swath of Americans on the right care far less about economic conservatism than about social conservatism. Bernie Sanders showed us that a large swath of Americans on the left prefer to prioritize economic equality over the latest conceptions of what might be called social justice. Candidates like Jeb Bush and Clinton turned out to have unexpected things in common, as did candidates like Sanders and Trump. This, in turn, has changed the political landscape.

Let us imagine a matrix. Along the horizontal axis we have economic leanings: socialism on the left, free markets on the right. Along the vertical axis we have social leanings: wokeness at the top and deplorability at the bottom. Before 2015, Washington had become accustomed to most political fights happening in the top-right quadrant. The other three were seen as irrelevant. Hillary Clinton was woker and economically more socialist than Jeb Bush, but the two had quite a bit in common. Then came Bernie Sanders, who proved willing to occupy the top-left quadrant, and Donald Trump, who proved willing to occupy a curious spot between the right and left quadrant and way down on the vertical one.

For both Democrats and Republicans, figuring out how to deal with these quadrants has been a major headache, and their voters feel the same way. A lot of current Democratic divides are playing out in the upper left and right. A couple of weeks ago, the Democratic National Committee took a classic upper-right approach to the midterms and filed suit against WikiLeaks, Russia, Trump, and just about everyone else seen as a foe in 2016, while those in the upper left rolled their eyes. Then, yesterday, The Intercept released a recording of No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer, a classic creature of the top right, trying to pressure an Obama administration alumnus Levi Tillemann, a top-left sort of candidate, into exiting a Democratic primary in Colorado. Hoyer’s belief is that Tillemann would hurt the chances of retaking the district.

Further complicating the math is that many Democrats are prepared to move leftward, toward Bernie economics, but almost none are prepared to move downward toward deplorability. Most Republicans are prepared to move downward, toward Trumpy deplorability, but not leftward towards Bernie economics. That means that a lot depends on which compromise voters in neglected quadrants find to be least disagreeable. When they hit the voting booth, in which direction will they move?

In 2018, we know the answer: they’ll move toward Democrats, whatever is being offered. In 2020? We can only speculate, and the unknowns are vast. Since that doesn’t stop us journalists, though, I’ll dive in. Let us assume Trump runs for office once more. If we’re at peace, with a strong economy, he may well win. We’re getting used to him, and most Americans are outside of the top-right quadrant, anyway. Our popular culture has always leaned left, but its leading lights—not least in the press—have never been this openly partisan or scolding or lacking in self-awareness, and people become inclined to rebel in the voting booth. Unfortunately for Trump, a strong economy is a long shot for 2020. We’ve had a long expansion, and keeping it going for 24 months more would be almost miraculous. Seeing Trump rail against Democrats and blame them for economic contraction will look more pathetic than plausible, and he has always tested people’s patience anyway. That’s a test they’ll be willing to fail if the economic numbers look bad. And a different economic populism, with a generous dash of wokeness, will prevail.