The number of Democrats who really want a cultural revolution is small. Those who lack the stomach to confront the zealots are legion. They have spent much of the past two years, for instance, pretending that Defund the Police means something else.

This ducking of the issue has a price. There are lots of reasons why President Joe Biden has low approval ratings. He has been a disappointment in the fight against the pandemic. In his social spending bill, he has assumed that policies that poll well individually remain popular when combined in great number. Part of the mix of problems, though, is cultural. Some voters worry that the 79-year-old is uncomprehending and therefore indulgent of a generation of progressive activists.

Republicans attribute their victory of the Virginia governorship in November at least in part to a backlash from cultural moderates. Among the first executive acts of Glenn Youngkin, who took possession of the office last month, has been to purge school curricula of “divisive concepts, including critical race theory”. Vague, yes. Cynical, even. But if his message resonates in solidly blue Virginia, Biden must consider the mood in Arizona and Georgia, among other states he took from the Republicans in 2020.