The punditry you get in the wake of many American elections is often so rote it can usually be anticipated in advance: If a centrist Democrat wins, the takeaway is that they did so by triangulating; if they lose, as Clinton-era hack Terry McAuliffe did in Virginia this week, the Left is invariably to blame. And so, right on cue, the standard chorus of pundits and operatives is already issuing the all too predictable argument that the Biden presidency has been pulled “too far to the left” and is being punished electorally as a result.

It’s an especially comical conclusion to draw as the Democratic Party continues to whittle down what was already a compromised legislative agenda at the behest of corporate interests — and, presumably, a prelude to a likely rightward pivot ahead of next year’s midterms almost certain to yield similar results.

Regardless of the outcome, of course, the usual suspects will double down on the same bogus ontology of politics they’ve embraced since 1992: that the only conceivable road to victory is one of triangulation and that the endless disciplining of liberal voters represents the only viable path to electoral success.