> the fact that there's a Gestapo-analogue in place already tells me that an electoral solution alone is almost certainly no longer sufficient (or at least, unlikely to be effective) at this point

Read up on the American Whig Party and President Andrew Jackson. Or, more recently, Poland. This is absolutely still in a reversible field.

> Democrats have also had very weak messaging ahead of the midterms

Utterly leaderless. In part because a lot of the party is compromised in having covered up Biden.