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Trump’s appeal was precisely that he was untainted by the horrible failings of the bipartisan political cartel of the last 20 years. Trump spoke forcefully enough about illegal or insidious immigration and trade deals that appeared to export unemployment to the United States that he corralled the anti-establishment vote, but he said nothing outside the mainstream in the rest of his pitch. He supports fiscal responsibility, universal health care and a re-energized western alliance. He attracted the militantly disaffected, but his program is well within the political midfield.

It is now generally understood that Trump ran against the authors of the first period of outright decline in American history. But the national political media, and to some extent the little pockets of foreign media who fancy themselves authorities on interpreting American politics to their national audiences, have barely changed their pitch since the election. As the only Clinton argument was to demonize Trump, the media, exposed as impotent stooges of the decayed Clinton-Bush-Obama vieux jeu, instead of recognizing that Trump is not a racist, sexist madman have effectively implied that there are more sexists, racists, and madmen in the United States than they had thought.

The error, by this line of reasoning, was not theirs — other than that they had not realized the extent to which the rot of extremist bigotry had spread in the land where George Washington’s cherry tree once grew. This response has been almost universal among Trump’s more vociferous opponents. They are like a swarm of bugs that has just been blasted with insecticide. There is a brief St. Vitus’ Dance of more frenzied activity and incoherent noise than ever, and then they all fall down, silent.