In 1953, Czesław Miłosz published The Captive Mind, which described how a series of Polish intellectuals came to embrace Stalinism. Miłosz detailed the role that “coercion” and “personal ambition” played in their ideological transformation. But he stressed that he was concerned “with questions more significant than mere force” or material advancement. “To belong to the masses is the great longing of the ‘alienated’ intellectual,” Miłosz argued. “The gratifications of personal ambition … are merely the outward and visible signs of social usefulness, symbols of a recognition that strengthens the intellectual’s feeling of belonging.”

The book caused a sensation in the United States and Western Europe, in part because Western intellectuals understood the yearning to “belong to the masses” that Miłosz described. Many had felt it themselves. In 1928, the philosopher John Dewey had written enviously that while Western intellectuals’ role was “chiefly critical,” intellectuals in the Soviet Union had a task that was “total and constructive. They are organic members of an organic going movement.” In his 1949 book, The Vital Center, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. observed that “against the loneliness and rootlessness of man in free society,” totalitarianism “promises the security and comradeship of a crusading unity.”

Trumpism is not Marxism, whose supposedly scientific theory of history held particular appeal for intellectuals. Even fascism—which grew out of social Darwinism—had a richer intellectual lineage than Trumpism does. But like the men who led those authoritarian movements, Trump offers intellectuals the chance to speak for the energized masses and thus to make themselves relevant beyond their salons. And now, as then, the desire for such relevance is strong enough to make some intellectuals question liberal democracy itself.

Read the intellectuals who are supporting Trump—or are open to supporting Trump—and you notice a few themes. First, they admire his campaign’s raw, unbridled energy. The Trump movement, according to the Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, radiates “dynamism.” His supporters “are just about the only cheerful people in politics … They’re having a good time.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an even more unabashed Trump booster, explains, “There is no model here … It is a Donald Trump unique, extraordinary experience. And you have to relax and take it for that kind of a unique experience.”

Next, pro-Trump intellectuals chastise political elites for disrespecting his exuberant, impassioned followers. “Those who oppose Mr. Trump should do it seriously and with respect for his supporters,” Noonan writes. “No one at this point needs your snotty potshots.” In fact, Trump’s intellectuals argue, elites have, due to their own incompetence and corruption, lost all grounds to lecture Trump supporters about individual rights and the rule of law. In his relationship to the Washington “establishmentarians,” says Gingrich, Trump is “like the boy who says the emperor has no clothing.” Noonan adds:

The Beltway intelligentsia of the conservative movement continues to be upset about Mr. Trump’s coming nomination and claim they’d support him but they have to be able to sleep at night. They slept well enough through two unwon wars, the great recession, and the refusal of Republican and Democratic administrations to stop illegal immigration.

This makes no sense. Even if conservative elites were undisturbed by illegal immigration, the financial crisis, and the Iraq and Afghan Wars (as Noonan asserts but makes no effort to prove), why does it follow that they should accede to a presidential candidate who demands torture, a religious test for entry into the United States, and the removal of judges because of their ethnicity? What Noonan is really suggesting is that established politicians and commentators lack the moral standing to oppose Trump, because he can’t be any worse than they are. And besides, the people are with him.