Not mentioned, though relevant, is the fact that the radicalisation of the liberal establishment over the past decade has made the old role of conservative elites less tenable. If they represent the interests of their base, they risk forfeiting their status and respectability among their fellow elites. But if they capitulate to each new progressive taboo as it is erected, they forfeit their credibility with the people they are supposed to represent, making themselves superfluous. Few on the Left or the populist Right are likely to shed a tear over this outcome, but absent any group able to effectively translate popular demands into the language of professional-class respectability, the two sides will lose their ability to talk to one another, and American politics will descend further down the road of all-out, zero-sum warfare.

The turning point, at least in the medium-term, will be the 2024 presidential primary. Whoever wins the party’s nomination will be in a strong position to win the presidency, and perhaps to enjoy at least a few years of unified control of the government. A Trump victory would not herald the “end of democracy in America”, but it would be a disaster for the country — four more years of chaos, mutual enmity, and partisan radicalisation in which political disputes are subordinated to the private whims and grievances of one man.