There was a brief period in the later part of the COVID-19 pandemic, between the moment when Glenn Youngkin swept into the Virginia governorship and the full political return of Donald Trump, when I became convinced that American liberalism was heading for a truly epochal defeat in 2024.

It seemed then that – under the influence of progressive radicalism, institutional groupthink and coronavirus fears – the liberal establishment was untethering itself from American normalcy to a politically suicidal degree.