In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, a wave of fear and reflection has taken hold across much of America. Much like Trump’s initial 2016 win, when journalists rushed to small-town Ohio diners to gauge what “real America thinks,” there’s a renewed sense that large swaths of experts and elites — not to mention the entire Democratic Party — may be out of touch with the zeitgeist and the electorate.

This feeling isn’t unwarranted, and it’s worth taking time to study what went wrong. But it’s also worth remembering that “the electorate” can be as unpredictable as the weather. If today’s voter preferences seem unsettling, give it time — they will likely shift again.

And no, this isn’t just about demographic changes; it’s about our ever-shifting national mood. After all, how else can we explain two-time Barack Obama voters switching to Trump in 2016?

A major driver of this volatility is that newly elected presidents tend to overestimate the mandate they’ve been given, assuming they’ve won a sweeping endorsement for their entire agenda. Joe Biden fell into this trap, convinced he could be the next Franklin D. Roosevelt or Lyndon B. Johnson, and his ambitious policy moves likely contributed to the outcomes (such as inflation) that helped Trump reclaim the White House.

These days, Trump seems........

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