The 2024 presidential election loss was bad enough for Democrats in the United States, generating dismay and woeful post-mortems throughout the ranks.

Then came Donald Trump’s rapid-fire announcements of nominees for top-level posts in his second administration — some with troubling resumes (Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Oz) and others with profiles that align with a scorched-Earth approach to the liberal policies of President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Barack Obama (the Elon Musk-Vivek Ramaswamy twosome, for example).

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Is the death knell tolling for a government role in economic stimulation and regulation, support for women’s rights, the advancement of diversity initiatives and multilateral approaches to global challenges?

Possibly, but dismay descending into despair is hardly new in American political life — nor, of course, in the experiences of leaders and citizens of many ideological stripes in many countries. Despair has often been a stage in a process that moves from grief and anger to searching introspection and renewed determination.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris pointed to this phenomenon in her concession speech: “Sometimes the fight takes a while.”

Presidents themselves have been no strangers to despair. Well before his 1789 inauguration, George Washington knew moments of deep pessimism. “I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde motion of things,” he wrote in late 1776.

When British troops and naval power forced Washington to abandon New York City, the commander of the American forces faced a forbidding array of handicaps: militia fighters who simply departed after their one-year enlistments; a Congress parsimonious with gun........

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