Regrettably, I cannot give credit by name to “Yup yup yup,” a Twitter user with the handle of @Hi_individual1, but I was inspired mentally to append my own assenting “yup yup yup” to his or her succinct summing up of American political life in the twenty-first century: “One side thinks it’s war; the other side doesn’t know there are sides.” Like most such sententiae, it is true in essence, though of course there are lots of people on the one side who don’t think it’s war—even as they routinely lend their automatic support to those who do—and at least a few on the other who do know that there are sides, though they may not admit it, even to themselves.

As anyone who remembers the happier days of “Bushitler” fifteen years ago will agree, this unacknowledged rhetorical “war” long antedates the Trump administration, but under Democratic presidents the war party tends to play it down, as they are already beginning to do in the first weeks and months of the Biden administration. Having waged their war of words with scorched-earth ruthlessness between 2016 and 2020, some of these combatants, now that their active “Resistance” to the party in power is no longer required, appear to be allowing for the possibility of a more conciliatory approach, if not to the hated Mr. Trump himself then to a select few of his defeated followers—especially those who might be the more willing to switch sides if they don’t know