for The Hill

Like the White Queen in “Alice in Wonderland,” Republican voters seem capable of believing “as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” In their looking-glass world, Donald Trump trounced Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, the world’s scientists are colluding in a climate change hoax and evil epidemiologists pushed mask mandates to deprive Americans of their liberty, not to protect them from a virus that’s killed more than six million people.

Democrats are wondering how they could possibly be losing to a defiantly delusional GOP in party preference matchups. One answer is that midterm elections are always tough on the party in power. Another is that Democrats have been falling into rabbit holes too.

Their illusions are explored in “The New Politics of Evasion,” a new study by two veteran political analysts, Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck published by the Progressive Policy Institute. It’s a timely and incisive exercise in political reality therapy for President Biden and his party, whose public approval has cratered over the past year.

By ignoring defecting swing voters, the authors warn, Democrats could not only take a beating in November but also reopen the door to Trump’s return, putting our democracy at risk.