Conspiracy theories were rampant in these complaints: I was secretly on the Republican payroll; I was secretly on the Democratic payroll; I was slated for a job in the Clinton, Cruz, Rubio or Bush administrations. The cynicism of the angry Trump supporters was so deep that my criticism of all these people in print was either dismissed or taken as evidence of an elaborate effort to conceal my true agenda, whatever it was.

There is also a triumphalist streak among the Trump supporters, who never tire of crowing about how old-school Republicans like me have “lost,” that the party has changed hands and that my kind needs to get in line or get out. Friendlier critics may not tell me I have to leave the party, but instead plead with me to understand how Trump’s primary victories were an important step toward getting even with the “elites” whom they believe control their lives. That term — the “elites” — slips from the mouths of not just casual acquaintances but also from friends and family. Even if they’re not trying to offend, the meaning is clear: They’re referring to people like me.

It’s not an entirely new line, of course. One of my uncles was a retired factory worker who for most of his life resented almost anyone who didn’t work with their hands. At dinner one evening many years ago, he issued the blanket declaration that everyone who works in Washington is corrupt. When I pointed out that I — someone he’s known for my entire life — was working in Washington as a Senate aide at the time, he blurted out: “I don’t care! Then you’re corrupt too!”

What he meant, of course, is that he saw me as part of system that was rigged against him. He saw the government as the servant primarily of rich corporations on one side and of unemployed minorities on the other. Like many of today’s Trump voters, he saw no middle ground, no connection between his own life and the many government programs like Social Security and Medicaid of which he was a beneficiary. For him, the government was just a group of bureaucrats stealing his money and then giving it away again — after taking their cut.

Today, I don’t even have to work in Washington to be accused of being corrupt. I just have to be someone who doesn’t love Donald Trump.

If Never-Trump Republicans are targets of rage to strangers and sources of disappointment to some of our friends and family, we are also objects of curiosity, especially among Democrats. Many people to my left see my opposition to Trump in the Oval Office as so obviously correct that it is ludicrous even to call attention to it, as though I have just bravely declared that I object to driving while blindfolded or to further wars with Britain. They treat me, somewhat condescendingly, as though I have finally come to my senses after years of misguided fraternization with the Republican enemy. For many liberals, of course, Trump is merely the natural endpoint of Republican evolution since the late 1960s. They might regret that it took the extremism of Donald Trump to make me finally see it, but better late than never.

Except that I don’t see it that way at all. To me, Trump is an alien presence in the Republican Party, an opportunist who could just as easily have hijacked white working-class voters among the Democrats or as part of a third-party bid. Nonetheless, strangers on social media and friends in my daily life mistakenly assume that my opposition to Trump equates to some sort of new sympathy for liberalism in general or for Hillary Clinton in particular. Some of them actually send me Clinton-friendly talking points, as though I might find them useful.