It is not a coincidence that Democrats have for some time lacked a top-notch bench of presidential candidates. Or that the party’s only thoughtful alternative to the irresponsibly expensive Build Back Better bill has come from just two senators, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema. The best players aren’t playing.

If we look closely, a similar stepping back from the policy arena can also be seen at colleges and universities. As Hoover Institution senior fellow Shelby Steele, Georgetown political science professor Joshua Mitchell, and Providence College theology professor James F. Keating have all observed, what so often appears to be a campus-wide swing to the far left is not nearly as broadly based as it seems. For many professors, putting Black Lives Matter stickers on their office doors is just the easiest way to tread the professional waters until an economically jolted America is finally prepared for a more sophisticated assessment of its problems.

Conventional wisdom may have it that progressives have wrested control of left-leaning institutions by intimidating traditional liberals with potential cancelation, but it would be more accurate to say that the second-string has simply filled an already existing void.