DUP's future: Everyone predicted it: now it has happened. The Democratic Unionist Party has wiped the floor with the Ulster Unionists.
The vast bulk of the Protestant and unionist population of Northern Ireland has placed its fate in the hands of Ian Paisley, a man revered by his followers as the saviour of "Ulster" and condemned by opponents as a political extremist and religious fundamentalist for whom there is no dirtier word than "compromise".
It is not the first time the majority community has used the Westminster elections to settle accounts with a unionist leader who made a serious attempt to find common ground with "the other side" and arrive at a moderate resolution of the troubles afflicting Northern Ireland. The same fate which overtook Brian Faulkner in 1974 has now been visited upon David Trimble.
Paisley is now lord of all he surveys, in terms of unionist politics and the Protestant electorate. But he and his colleagues must still take account of the needs and requirements of the nationalist minority, which has also opted to a considerable extent for more militant leadership in the person of Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin.
In addition, the two governments in London and Dublin, not to mention their allies in the US and EU, will not be kindly disposed to any attempt to impose Paisleyite norms on the Northern Ireland political scene.
Although moderates and liberals will despair at yesterday's results, the prospects in the longer term may not be as stark as they at first appear.
Before election fever took hold in Northern Ireland, Paisley and his allies were engaged in very serious negotiations involving the two governments and the republican movement.
Major steps were taken towards the revival of the Assembly and a power-sharing administration, on the one hand, and a further push towards retirement by the IRA, on the other.
The whole thing fell apart over Paisley's demand for a photograph of the IRA in the act of decommissioning, although that is widely regarded as having been an election gambit.
The more moderate element of Ulster Unionism has suffered a major setback from which they may never recover. But even in their defeat there is a kind of victory, because they can lay some claim to have infected their main political rivals with the virus of compromise and reconciliation.
Few democrats will rejoice at the fate of those whose political careers have gone up in flames in the last 24 hours, but they can perhaps find consolation in the thought that the victors in the battle are now rather more likely than before to conduct themselves with moderation and common sense.
For one thing, the DUP is not just the Paisley fan club of yore. A very sizeable element of the old Ulster Unionist Party has moved over to its camp. These are not tub-thumping true believers but rational and intelligent people for the most part who had serious difficulties with the terms of the Belfast Agreement as well as the style and substance of David Trimble's leadership.
The election is over, and the main results are in, but even the most extreme elements of the DUP cannot wish away the problems confronting the people of Northern Ireland, nor will they be allowed to do so, either by nationalists or the two governments. The challenge of finding a modus vivendi with their neighbours confronts the DUP every bit as starkly as it did the Ulster Unionists.
For all their rhetoric, the DUP have shown over recent years that they understand the meaning and purpose of politics.
Although their party leader, at 79, remains sprightly and robust, even he cannot last for ever at this level of politics, and the big question about the DUP continues to be posed: Is there life after Paisley?