Scene: walking in Washington at dusk, looking around an old market neighborhood made new again. I’m coming from a book talk, searching the lively sidewalks for the Metro station.

A guy sees my shop bag and asks what book I’m reading. I show him: “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History.” Chris Whipple is the author.

It’s on the vicissitudes of the 2024 campaign, I say, how Joe Biden, by bowing out so late in the game, helped Donald Trump win.

(OK, I didn’t say vicissitudes.)

I look sideways. He’s not exactly my type: tattoos, camo shorts, a buzzcut. Late 20s.

“You’re a Democrat?” he asks.

“I’m a liberal,” I reply. “You?”

“I’m for Trump,” he says. I should not be shocked, but this city is a blue stronghold.

“Wow, you voted for Trump?” I say.

“Well, I can’t vote. I’m a felon,” he says, “when I was 19.”

I’m impressed by his candor, telling a stranger that.

He adds he’s “a Virginian, ma’am,” with a touch of a Southern accent.

I am not surprised. “Ma’am” was a giveaway.

We’re walking along, and I’m a bit lost in this part of town. (I took a taxi there.)

He offers to show me the way to the Metro and asks if it’s OK to keep walking with me.

Sure, thank you.

Then I say how fond I am of the federal government and its workforce, more than of any state.

That in a nutshell is a long-running American argument and war, right? Is it over yet?

Everybody needs a helping hand sometimes, I say, using Medicaid as an endangered example.

“I was on Medicaid,” he says.

By now I am verklempt but try not to show it to this young Southern gentleman. In another life, he’d be a Confederate rebel soldier, no doubt.

And I’m a damn Yankee. In Wisconsin, my home state, the University of Wisconsin football stadium, Camp Randall, was built as a prisoner-of-war camp during the Civil War.

Not many know that, but I don’t mention it.

I say he might get his right to vote restored after a time, and he should check into that.

Register, I say. That’s democracy.

The dusk is turning dark as we turn toward the NoMa-Gallaudet U Metro station.

“I’m glad we could talk like this,” he says.

I agree.

In the capital of a deeply divided country, there is absolutely nothing to lose with a conversation across sides. Something to be gained, perhaps.

His phone buzzes. That’s my fiancee, he says.

We part ways with a handshake and courtliness on his part on my pulchritude. (He did not use that word.)

I feel good going home.

Then I read Whipple’s book.

In the riveting backstories of the three campaigns, it’s hard not to feel the 2024 election could have gone differently if not for the foolish pride and fog of delusion Whipple aptly documents in the Biden White House.

The June debate debacle was the kiss of death for Biden.

The story for me: not so much that Trump won a close election, but that Democrats lost it. A fair and square primary would have fielded the best candidate.

Jamie Stiehm is a journalist and history buff. She can be reached at JamieStiehm.com.