Last week, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a characteristic statement urging her party to remain in the center and resist any turn to the left.

Pelosi’s remarks came with a bizarre addendum, namely the suggestion that Democrats should narrow the horizon of their ambitions because Donald Trump might contest the legitimacy of the election results: “We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that”, said the Speaker, before issuing the following prescription to her party:

Own the center left, own the mainstream . . . .  Our passions [during last year’s midterms] were for health care, bigger paychecks, cleaner government — a simple message . . . .  We did not engage in some of the other exuberances that exist in our party.