If not for Covid, Donald Trump would likely have been comfortably reelected in 2020. As it happened, that Joe Biden barely eked out victory even in that dreadful year of death and violence and lockdowns should have been a warning to the Biden-Harris administration to keep their promises of centrist normalcy. Instead, the new regime chose reckless brass-knuckled opportunism, from exploiting the January 6 riot to silence and intimidate the political opposition, to weaponizing vaccine mandates, to casting open the borders to millions and millions of unvetted migrants from around the world. Since restricting immigration had been Trump’s signature issue, they’d show America who was boss by flooding the country with newcomers.

With the notable exceptions of some commendable efforts at antitrust enforcement and reshoring industry, the Biden-Harris administration has too often felt like an abusive free-for-all lavishing benefits on its friends and exacting vengeance on its enemies. The concerns and material interests of most Americans have rarely seemed even part of the conversation, let alone a priority, and it was only with the election approaching that the Biden and then Harris campaign started making some halfhearted pivots back to the centrism that had been the central premise of their previous campaign.