Intellectuals defend democracy without troubling to think about what most people want. Most people want what Trump is selling: a positive self-image. Trump is not about conservatism. He is about the self-esteem of White Americans. Trump tells people it's OK to be them. That is a very powerful message, and nothing about the man himself diminishes that power.

The woke Left is obsessed with microaggressions. They don't realize that their constant attack on "systemic" bad-isms is actually a barrage of microaggressions, which have taken precisely the toll that the Left says microaggressions take. Every "first this" or "first that" is a microaggression against cis-het WASP men or White people generally. It doesn't matter whether people should infer insult from these things. What matters is what they do infer it. Trump validates those inference by telling MAGA world that, contrary to all the signs they are seeing around them, they are good people.

The Democrats have become the party of scolds, the Republicans the party of the scolded. Ideology will matter again if we ever get to less interesting times.