There’s a well-established pattern since the start of the Trump era, but in the past two campaign years it’s more condensed, and even more dangerous. Donald Trump sees a political victory, and Democrats follow it in short order with an attack, either political, legal, or violent in nature.

Immediately after this week’s debate — in which Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance so thoroughly vanquished Tim Walz, simultaneously humiliating all of the Kamala Harris campaign’s supporters in the national news media — the countdown began. Our biggest problem is that we don’t know exactly how much time is on the clock.

A brief and incomplete timeline of events includes:

— Trump securing the Republican nomination in 2016, at which point Democrats, the media, and their partners in the Washington intelligence community began fabricating a close link between Trump and Russia, thereby taking out his politically astute campaign manager Paul Manafort.

— Trump winning the election, after which his opponents demanded a special counsel that would hunt for crimes that might lead to removing him from office.

— Trump presiding over widespread economic prosperity, reduced international conflict, and the reassertion of America’s sovereignty and leadership of the Free World. Democrats responded by impeaching the president over a phone call concerning corruption in one of the most indisputably corrupt nations in Eastern Europe.

— Trump coasting toward reelection, which Democrats answered with a hysterical pandemic disinformation campaign, reconfigured swing-state voting rules, and violent hyped-up race riots.

When Trump was still standing and widely expected to once again run for president, Democrats raided his private residence, pressed criminal charges against him in multiple states, and attempted to bar his name from appearing on voter ballots. Then they tried to kill him. Then they tried to kill him again.

The surest sign that Vance so dominated the debate is that just 48 hours later, the media aren’t talking about it. And even in that time frame, they only talked about it to call Vance “slick” and “smooth” (terms used for con men), or otherwise to say that Tim Walz could have had a better night. Anything but acknowledge that Vance deftly demonstrated his political capability and mastery of subject matter.

What’s next? There’s always something next. And now that Trump’s running mate just had a highly successful debate performance only a few weeks ahead of Election Day, whatever it is will be happening very soon.