So now what? I ask that earnestly, not rhetorically. Last night, Donald Trump won the Iowa caucus. There seems little chance that Trump will stall out going forward, which means that he is almost certain to win the Republican nomination, which means that the already small chance of Joe Biden voluntarily stepping aside will disappear, which means that we are going to get another Biden v. Trump election. How, some observers have asked, could we possibly be destined to have yet another a presidential contest that a supermajority of voters so obviously wishes to avoid? Well, this is how: Ignoring all the warning signs, the parties have arranged a repeat. The rest of us will have to live with it. …

I get the sense that both parties think that the public is bluffing. I don’t think it is. Joe Biden really is fatally unpopular. Donald Trump really is hated. Shout at me if you wish, but I relate all this calmly — as a matter of dull fact.

[H.L. Mencken once described democracy as voters getting what they want, and getting it good and hard. To be fair, though, what we have here are two forms of incumbency mandates, which makes this all but inevitable, it seems. — Ed]