How Trump Insults Real Americans

Many commentators have argued that liberal contempt for the sensibilities of white working-class voters contributed to Donald Trump's improbable rise to the presidency. It's a fair point: If seasoned politicians alienate this constituency, demagogues will rush in to fill the void. But these worries often contain a troubling subtext: that white working-class voters are “real Americans” whose concerns are, somehow, more important than those of the motley basket of urbanites, minorities, immigrants, feminists, and intellectuals who vote for liberals. If liberals need to be more careful not to inadvertently insult working-class whites, it's just as important that Trump's supporters and apologists appreciate that a significant and growing number of Americans regard Trump's presidency itself as an ongoing personal insult. This is at least as serious a threat to conservative positions—and to civil discourse generally—as the ressentiment of the white working class is to liberals. Trump's undisguised bigotry and misogyny now taint almost every position he endorses or advances, making it hard to disentangle, for instance, legitimate criticism of current immigration policies from racist aversion to people of non-European ancestry, or, to take an especially timely example, support for conservative Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh—accused of what amounts to aggravated sexual assault—from rank misogyny.