Politics has become an offshoot of spectacle. Trump has left intellectuals grasping for historical analogies: Is he a fascist or a populist? Is he a latter-day Know Nothing or a modern demagogue? The analogies are unsatisfying because they fail to account for popular culture as a political force, the way it has scrambled traditional dividing lines. Trump has Orthodox Jewish grandchildren and is a hero to the white-power movement. He won a record percentage of Arab American votes, then appointed an ambassador to Israel who claims that “there is no such thing as Palestinians.” He enjoys fervent support among evangelicals despite the fact that his character is a living contradiction of every value they revere. These paradoxes would not be possible in a politics that selects the country’s leadership on the basis of ideas and character. They make sense if brute exposure determines who wins.
-Stephen Marchie in The Atlantic
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