In Dallas in the autumn of 2026, the Republican Party gathered for its national convention without Donald Trump on the ballot or in office — and yet his presence organized every room, every speech, every calculation. What began as a disruption of political norms has settled into something more consequential: a structural realignment, in which a major American party has reoriented its identity, its machinery, and its ambitions around a single figure's will. The convention raised a question that transcends any one election cycle — whether this represents a moment in the long arc of party evoluti