OPINION — Donald Trump called his supporters the “silent majority” and the “forgotten man and woman” in the 2016 campaign.

Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables.”

Talking heads and commentators, lacking any sense of reality or civility, use words like “racist,” “bigots,” “idiots,” “homophobes,” “misogynists” and the like to describe nearly half the country that voted for Trump.

But is this simply a case of sore losers suffering mightily from Trump derangement syndrome, still in denial at Clinton’s unexpected loss, or is there something bigger at work? Is the silent majority a U.S. phenomenon, or are we seeing the first skirmishes of a working- and middle-class revolution against political elites developing here and abroad?

In Britain, anti-Brexit forces dubbed the working- and middle-class voters who favored a British pullout as “leavers” or, more pejoratively, “Brextremists.” Many in political and media circles expected “reason” would prevail in the hotly contested Brexit vote and were sorely disappointed with the results.