One day it may be said of the Democrats’ run in the 2020 election that their campaign peaked too soon. Much, much too soon.

Already they have assumed that the White House will be theirs, and they set out boasting of a new class of leaders that was different and better than any imagined before, so novel and different, so gay and so female. And never had it seemed to splinter so quickly, beset by problems it hadn’t imagined and complications it hadn’t foreseen.