The natural role for Beto in a race that already featured Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as the socialist Tweedledee and Tweedledum was to run as a moderate. At the time he announced I wrote, “With the exception of the more seasoned, but less famous Amy Klobuchar, Beto is the first candidate to fill in the moderate lane of the Democratic primary.” Boy, was I wrong.

Instead of taking the logical path of the sensible Democrat who might even take Texas, he cast himself as the wokest of the woke, the most animated hater of Donald Trump who eventually promised to confiscate American’s guns. What led him to this ill-advised decision is not clear, but it does speak to a broader trend that Democrats have to deal with.

Put bluntly, the party of Jefferson and Jackson, as it was once known, pays far too much attention to Twitter and cable news, and far too little to the actual concerns of American voters. Most Democratic voters, especially in swing states, are not hyper-concerned with gun confiscation, transgenderism for kids, stripping churches of tax-exempt status, or having taxpayers provide health insurance to people in the country illegally.