The first day of the Republican Party’s presidential nominating convention has gotten off to a start no one might have seen coming.

Those stodgy, staid, stuffy Republicans are looking like Democrats.

More to the point, they’re looking like Democrats of Yesteryear, back when the Democrats used to fight among themselves, convention delegates walking off the floor.

The GOP started its Donald J. Trump nominating convention by having a knock-down floor fight initiated by the anti-Trump forces. They wanted to change the rules to allow a roll-call vote that could have allowed delegates to abandon their obligation to voting for the frontrunner.

They didn’t clear the hurdle. The convention chair declared the voice vote to have gone to the Trumpkins, and the move died at the scene.

Democrats in 1968 and again in 1972 used to fight like that. Republicans, meanwhile, conducted orderly conventions those years … and went on to win the presidential election. The 1980 Democratic convention had its share of drama, too, with Ted Kennedy’s forces fighting to change the rules, only to lose that fight to the Jimmy Carter juggernaut. That election turned out badly for Democrats, too.

This year, Democrats are going to be mild-mannered. Republicans are going to fight among themselves.

What does any of this portend for the fall election?

I am not going there. I’ve tried to predict political outcomes for too long without success.

I’ll just sit back and watch the theatrics.