The Anti-Trump Wave has come, and no one can stop it.

Democrats have suffered a series of close losses in special elections in 2017, contributing to the broad sense, especially among Democrats themselves, that Donald Trump had a kind of supernatural appeal that defied political physics and rendered metrics such as his dismal approval rating suspect.

The anti-incumbent wave in Virginia has dispelled that particular form of magical thinking. Trump is a deeply unpopular president, and his party is in serious danger of losing control of the House, many of its down-ballot offices, and conceivably even the Senate.

To be sure, Virginia has unique demographic qualities that may have enhanced the power of the anti-Trump wave. It is a racially diverse state with a high proportion of college-educated voters. But there are many House Republicans from districts with similar demographic profiles — in New Jersey, New York, and California, among other places. The suburbs alone could offer up enough Republican defeats to flip the House in 2018.

What is remarkable is that the Republican plan to avert this catastrophe is to inflict economic hardship on these very constituents.

The first paragraph is important, given the fatalism that Democrats often give in to.