With concatenated hat-tips to our friends Horace Jeffery Hodges and Bill Vallicella, here is a superb essay on the Trumpian assault on the postmodernism that has had a death-grip on Western culture for some time now (and which, I have argued, has its roots in the radical skepsis that was born in the Enlightenment itself).

Central to the argument is that Mr. Trump is canny enough to fight the postmodernist devil not by direct dialectical opposition, but by turning its own method against it. (In this, as I mentioned over a year ago, there is a satisfying Alinskyist irony.)

I’m reminded of how Perseus slew Medusa: he was able to approach her safely by looking only at her reflection in his shield. Millennia later, Mr. Trump is beheading the Gorgon by becoming its reflection.

In this context I’ll recommend also The Devil’s Pleasure Palace, by Michael Walsh (who may be known to some of you as “David Kahane“.