In 2016, after President Trump shocked the press by defeating Hillary Clinton, there was a protracted episode of self-flagellation in media. Establishment newsrooms everywhere promised to do better to understand an electorate it clearly knew nothing about.

On Wednesday, as the fate of the 2020 presidential election still hangs in the balance, it became achingly clear that those promises had been empty. Over the last four years, the news industry had only retreated further into its partisan trenches.