A typical small-town Southern Baptist church in Texas became the scene of the fifth-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history Nov. 5, when a gunman interrupted Sunday morning worship with gunshots from a military-style rifle, killing at least 26 people and wounding dozens more.
The stories of Graham Platner and Roy Moore, although unfolding in different parties and different eras, trace the same institutional pattern: Modern political parties elevate outsiders when they are useful and abandon them when they become inconvenient. Platner and Moore...











