Democrats and their allies are already rationalizing their likely defeat next Tuesday, variously blaming the economy, GOP obstructionism, corporate money, or an inexplicable collapse in President Obama’s communications skills. Whatever minor truth lies in these excuses, they obscure the larger reality: Americans appear ready to repudiate Democratic governance for the fourth consecutive time.

Senior Editorial Writer Joseph Rago maps out the bureaucracy to come.

Far from being a unique historical event, a GOP victory on Tuesday will repeat the pattern we have seen since the 1960s. Four times Democrats have won control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and four times they have attempted to govern from the left. Each time Americans saw that agenda and its results, and they rejected it at an early opportunity. Maybe there’s a lesson here.

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We cite the 1960s as a watershed because it marked the creation of the modern Democratic Party. The Southern conservatives who had checked the left since the de facto end of the New Deal in 1938 were swept away by LBJ’s 1964 landslide. Democrats implemented their fondest ambitions—the Great Society, Medicare and Medicaid—only to lose 47 House seats in 1966 and the White House two years later, as the Democratic coalition split over Vietnam and flower power.

Thanks to Watergate, Democrats returned to overwhelming dominance in 1976. Jimmy Carter had run as a centrist—he favored regulatory reform and sun-setting programs—but he quickly ran afoul of young liberals on Capitol Hill who had flooded into the House in 1974. They overrode Mr. Carter’s spending vetoes and ran his budget director out of town. Democrats avoided major losses in 1978 only to lose both the Senate and White House in the first Reagan landslide amid inflation and gasoline lines.

Their next chance to govern came in 1992, as Bill Clinton won the Presidency after 12 years of GOP dominance. Mr. Clinton ran as a New Democrat, but there were few of those in Congress. Democrats imposed a huge tax increase, put off welfare reform and tried to pass HillaryCare. They lost both houses in 1994, and they wouldn’t reclaim the House for 12 years, amid the near-defeat in Iraq and GOP corruption of 2006. For his part, Mr. Clinton saved his Presidency by moving back to the center.

The fourth great Democratic governing opportunity arrived two years ago as Barack Obama rode his post-partisan rhetoric and the financial panic to the largest win by a Democrat since LBJ. Their House majority swelled to 39 seats, and in the Senate they achieved a filibuster-proof 60 seats. The Republican “brand” was badly tarnished, and pundits heralded a new Democratic era. Amid the Democratic euphoria, New York Senator Chuck Schumer visited our offices and told us to cooperate with this new agenda or we would be irrelevant.

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