Sublime

Under Trump, the Republican Party has gone irreversibly populist. It has traded away a sizable share of its educated, higher-income, and mainly suburban base in return for non-college-educated, working-class voters, mainly outside the big metro areas, who had earlier voted for Democrats like Obama and Clinton.

Both Trump and his Democratic opponents violated long-standing democratic norms, although the media focused only on Trump’s transgressions—both real and imaginary.

There’s no question Trump is making his share of incendiary remarks—as do many politicians in countless circumstances—but uniquely, in this instance, the press gives itself perpetual permission to step away from its reporting role and take him on in an intensely personal and biased sense.