It has been an iron law in American politics that, no matter what the electorate wants, our politics only has two speeds: a rush to the left and then a period of the left consolidating their gains.
There is a liberal “ratchet.”
There have been a few exceptions, but they have been minor and temporary. “Criminal justice reform” went too far, too fast, so some modest recalibration has been done–by liberals who got burned–but the 20th and 21st centuries have been a long march leftward without any serious obstacles.
Every conservative “win” has been nothing more than a temporary speed bump for the left, forcing them to retrench for the next battle. The left established new “norms” to which the conservatives must adhere, and conservatives have mainly seen their role as making what the left created work just a bit more efficiently.
The best encapsulation of…
