The difference is that when the conservative viewpoint is unpopular, it is highly publicized by Big Media, Hollywood, academia, progressive protests, and Democratic campaigns. When progressive activists are out of the mainstream, whether nationally or locally, these institutions rarely publicize it precisely because they are dominated by people who agree with the progressive activists.

So it is with the media’s largely delusional grand passion for O’Rourke. As with Wendy Davis before him, Beto was going to be the progressive prophet with the Kennedy-esque charisma to sell unreconstructed liberalism to the benighted masses of Texas.

And why wouldn’t they think this? The current rage, both in fashion and emotion, on the left is for abolishing the Senate and the Electoral College. They claim to despise populism and nationalism while futilely dreaming of dismantling two of the bulwarks against these forces. They want to pretend the United States is not in fact a union of states—so why would they care about what the electorate in Texas is actually like?