In Dallas, before thousands of Republican delegates, President Trump unveiled what he called an unprecedented offer in American political life: a $5,000 cash dividend, bearing his name, to every adult citizen should Republicans hold both chambers of Congress in the midterms. The proposal arrived as a kind of wager against history — the long-standing pattern by which the party in power loses its congressional majority — and as a distillation of a broader argument that what has been built can just as easily be undone. It is a moment that asks voters to weigh tangible promises against present anx