However, the more immediate context of this whole episode is pretty revealing. Democrats simply can’t wrap their heads around what’s happening in the current election. A lot can happen in eight months, but for some time now Trump has been definitively leading in the polls, which is a marked reversal from 2020. And this is not just about the fact that Joe Biden is feckless and senile.

Democrats are simultaneously hitting the panic button and desperately casting about for explanations as to why Trump is winning, but the answer is at once simple and overwhelming: They haven’t reckoned with the fact that the electorate, including a lot of traditionally Democrat constituencies, are starting to notice that in recent years the default right-of-center position on just about every major political issue has proven correct, where the left-wing ruling class has been quite definitively wrong.