George Packer: “For two and a half centuries American politics alternated between progressive and conservative periods, played between the 40-yard lines of liberal democracy. The values of freedom, equality, and rule of law at least received lip service; the founding documents enjoyed the status of civic scripture; the requisite American mood was optimism.”
“Although reaction has dominated local or regional (mainly southern) politics, it’s something new in our national politics—which explains why Trump has been misunderstood and written off at every turn. Reaction is insular and aggrieved, and it paints in dark tones. It wants to undo progress and reverse history, restoring the nation to some imagined golden age when the people ruled. They want a strongman with the stomach to trample on the liberal pieties of the elites who sold them out.”
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