Political norms have been turned upside down

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — A full century ago, the 28th president — a professor as much as a politician — counseled the man who would become the 32nd chief executive that there was a predictable tide in the nation’s politics. Woodrow Wilson shaped the perspective of the young Franklin Delano Roosevelt indelibly when he told him the country was willing to be liberal for only about a third of the time and then it always returns to its conservative moorings.