Labor Day is behind us. The election is close. That means political lawn signs are rapidly spreading like a nasty quadrennial rash across the nation.

One sign that has sprung up like a weed repeats Vice President Kamala Harris’s phrase “… unburdened by what has been.” In speeches, the Democratic presidential nominee uses variants of “what can be” before the dots. On Monday in Pittsburgh, for example, she told her fans, “We have dreams. We can see what is possible, unburdened by what has been.”