Realignments are often the story of a failed past paradigm. Biden thought he was entering office as the next FDR. To appease a Democratic Party racing left, he detonated border controls and enacted a full-spectrum agenda of progressive identity politics. He denounced his opponents as a threat to the “soul of the nation” and called for the removal of guardrails on narrow partisan majorities (by endorsing both the nuclear option on the Senate filibuster and some version of progressive court reform). On Tuesday night, voters rejected his politics of the widening gyre.

The collapse of the Biden presidency and the rout of the Harris campaign present an opportunity, and a warning, for Republicans. A faction trusted with power will be punished by the voters if it fails to deliver, and elites risk grave political dangers if they become insulated in the pseudo-cosmos of their own fantasies. To avoid a similar electoral reckoning, the Republican Party must keep its new bargain with the American public.