Wait a sec! This isn't the Donald Trump we know.

Words don't often fail me. I wouldn't last long in this job if they did. But Tuesday night, after sitting with a big bowl of popcorn, serenely watching the Democrats run the table in the mid-term elections — a strong majority in the House, more than enough in the Senate, even the governorship of Texas — I snapped off the television, sucked my front teeth, tweeted out a clip of Anthony Quinn doing his ecstatic Zorba the Greek dance, then went to bed.

But the clip, even without elaboration, was deceptive. I didn't feel ecstatic, or celebratory, or even particularly glad. What I felt was calm, focused, and more than a little wary. So... after all that thundering for years about rigged elections, conjuring up will-o'-the-wisps of voter fraud and mobilizing the Justice Department to chase after them, the biggest crybaby in public life since Nero is going to just shrug and go, "Oh, right, I lost. Good for you."

And we're supposed to believe him? Does that sound probable to you?

Maybe I bought a bully's bluster. Didn't realize that, like the Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz," one solid bop on the nose would change him from a preening predator to a blubbering wreck, complaining that Fox News doesn't love him anymore.

Or maybe there's a Plan B — they won't certify the election. Another mob will be sicc'd on the Capitol. He tried it before.

Did he really say he was "absolutely willing" to accept the election results? That he would "look forward to working with" the Democrats? That they did a "good job"? Does that sound like the Donald Trump you've gotten to know over the past 10 years? Can I be the only one in the country who is suspicious?

Smarter political minds than my own seem to accept it. Wednesday I reached out to political wiz David Axelrod, the man who helped put Barack Obama in the White House. Why isn't Trump fighting this tooth and nail? His reply might be the most succinct remark in the history of punditry since Dorothy Parker supposedly responded to the death of Calvin Coolidge with, "How can they tell?"

"Too big to rig!" Axelrod said.

Could that be it? Yes, the scope of the loss was enormous. Seven states flipped: Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. With Mississippi — Mississippi! — incredibly, still too close to call. Governorships in Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio and Iowa. Why not enjoy it? Grab our skis and head for hell, because obviously it's frozen over, every red state now a winter Democratic wonderland.

Why are Republicans accepting that? As I've said for years, once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the exact nature of the reality being ignored hardly matters. The most popular and successful man on earth — in his own estimation — could just as easily use the historic rebuke as more evidence of fraud. "I'm more popular than Jesus. So obviously these results were dialed up by George Soros in a bunker in Davos, which is why I'll be imposing martial law..."

Are there facts so enormous that even Donald Trump can't ignore them? Maybe. But even if the president goes quietly — and credit to him, I suppose, for finally snapping to the value of the rule of law, if that is indeed what happened — celebration is premature. With power comes responsibility, and at 12:01 p.m. on Jan. 3, 2027 the president will start gleefully blaming every rainy day on the Democrats. He already does.

It's hard to turn a ship big as the United States. For years its been steaming toward nationalism, away from the rule of law, away from rationality, science, facts. The population has been trained to think that shutting down the government, which is supposed to help them, and giving the proceeds to rich people to make them even richer, is a good thing.

Meanwhile the Democrats often act like a herd of cats, some trying to solve every problem on earth but our own, while others want to subdivide the country into 100 identities and then focus on the smallest groups.

There's a real possibility that the wildest excesses of the Trump administration — the war on immigrants, ICE kidnapping people off the street, the FBI and the Justice Department going after the president's perceived enemies, measles being ushered back and given a cabinet post, rampant corruption and self-dealing — were shrugged off, while the public rebelled against $5-a-gallon gas. If the Democrats blow this opportunity to establish themselves as the party helping working people, those two years will snap by. Donald Trump will be 82 and eager to go after his third term. Or someone much like him. Or worse.