In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing in the summer of 2020, a sea of middle-class white protesters in my former hometown of Denver ritualistically writhed and moaned face-down on the grass for nine minutes in a park. It’s difficult to believe in hindsight that such creepy and transparent virtue-signaling ever took place. But middle-class white liberals were in a tailspin at the time. The often contradictory codes of “woke” social etiquette had knotted their brains; they were simultaneously confused and fighting mad, and above all, they were desperate to appear to be standing on the “right side of history.” So strong was this urge as they packed into the park in Denver that day that even the rules of social distancing were suspended, as well as the science™ upon which they were based.

These folks have come to mind frequently in recent weeks as a spate of newly released polls on minority voter preferences suggest unprecedented levels of minority support for — gulp — former President Donald Trump and his Republican Party. Indeed, if these surveys are to be believed, American politics is undergoing a racial realignment unseen since the passage of the Civil Rights Act. In response to nearly a decade of white liberal virtue-signaling and pearl-clutching over a supposedly racist and xenophobic politician, minority voters appear to be ditching their self-appointed saviors en masse.