The Democrats in America have a new slogan, borrowed from British comedy series Dad’s Army: “Don’t panic!” That is the message being conveyed to the party faithful by a leadership that finds itself in a rather different situation from what it had expected, with little more than a year to go before the 2024 presidential election.
In life, it is always important to distinguish between the conventional wisdom and the real world. Some Britons learned that lesson in 2016; others are still capering in EU costumes at Liberal Democrat conferences. The American Democrats thought they had a clear game plan worked out: prosecute Donald Trump and put him in jail, if possible, failing which the disrepute attaching to his name would make him unelectable.
