Way back in 2016, before we knew for sure that the Obama administration had weaponized the Department of Justice and was using it to tamper with an election, and ultimately to undermine an incoming administration, the upcoming presidential election was described by some as a “Flight 93 election.” Flight 93, of course, is the plane that was brought down in a field on 9/11 by a group of heroic passengers who were determined not to let Islamic terrorists fly the plane into a building.

The idea is pretty simple: some believed that it was crucial that we win in 2016 because another four years of Democratic control could put the nation on an irreversible trajectory to ruin. The analogy with Flight 93 has to do both with the desperation of the situation and with the slim hope for success. In the event, the passengers of Flight 93 died as heroes but died nonetheless. America was more fortunate in 2016: we gambled on a Republican candidate about whom a great many of us were skeptical, and we won more than many of us expected or even hoped.