Things change dramatically, though, if we’re told repeatedly that arrogant elites have willfully chosen to disregard and demean us to advance schemes that are out-and-out evil.   This message gives our feelings of being inconsequential and insufficiently respected, along with their accompanying and long-suppressed pain and rage, a way of finally being vented—and without ever having to speak openly about these feelings, or even privately recognize or acknowledge them.   As a result, many people have proven themselves to be not only willing, but eager to answer calls to smash what they view as a completely rotten existing social order to smithereens.

This is the essence of the MAGA movement’s appeal to its most hardcore adherents.