For thirty or forty years, that section of the white American population that is not rich, not awfully well educated, and not liberal has been held in contempt by its opposites, affluent and well educated white liberals.  This includes those young people who, though too young at the moment, have reasonable aspirations to become affluent and well educated white liberals at some future date.  In sum, the plain folks have been looked on with disdain by the nation’s actual and would-be sociocultural elites.

The elites have told the plain folks, “You people are racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, and Islamophobes, and just the other day you became – who can be surprised? – transphobes.  You are ignorant and prone to violence.  You know nothing about science, above all evolutionary biology and climate science.  You have learned none of the lessons history has to teach.  You have a virtually criminal love of guns.  Your religion is a mixture of superstition and hypocrisy.  You profess to hold a religion of love, but your Christianity is little more than a mask for your hate.  In sum, and it pains me to say this, you are deplorable.”

Hillary used words like this a few weeks ago when speaking to a group of affluent white liberals, but the now famous phrase she used – “a basket of deplorables” – expressed with poetic precision attitudes most of those in her audience had entertained for years.

As plain people see the situation, it appears that the elites would be happy if America were a nation without these deplorables, or at least with damned few of them.  It would be better if the USA were made up entirely of non-deplorables, of good people – that is, white liberals, African-Americans, Latinos, gays, lesbians, trans people, Muslims, refugees from ungovernable parts of the world, and welfare recipients.  Needless to say, all these good people would be gun-less.  They would be horrified by the very word “gun” – which in polite circles would be spoken of as the g-word.

Is it any wonder that the plain folks would finally react negatively to all this disdain?  That they would finally strike back?  Is it any wonder that they would reject with anger a presidential candidate (Hillary) who carries the triumphant flag of their sociocultural despisers?  And is it any wonder that the plain folks, in despising their despisers, would choose to support a candidate (Trump) who, of all the possible candidates in the universe, is most offensive to the sociocultural elites?  How better to spit in the eye of the elites than to choose Trump?

There are many conservatives who have said to the plain folks, “Look: we are on your side.  We recognize the thousand insults and injuries you have received from white liberal elites.  We are pleased to see that you are at last fighting back.  But why in the world did you choose a man like Trump as your champion?  Can’t you see that he is a bad man?  Why didn’t you choose a good man?  Or at least a halfway decent man?  Why were you so foolish as to choose a man who, because of his badness, may lose a battle against Hillary and her ilk that could have been won?”

And the plain folks answer: “That’s precisely the point.  We like Trump because he’s bad.  He’s vulgar.  He’s a liar and a hypocrite.  He’s appallingly egoistical.  He’s terribly ignorant about many things.  We know that.  But we don’t care.  For it’s all those negative characteristics that send liberal elites up the wall.  Trump drives them crazy.  No other possible candidate could have irritated them one tenth as much as Trump irritates them.  That’s why he’s our man.  We realize he’s a risk to lose an election that could easily have been won.  But the pleasure we get from maddening those liberal bastards is worth the risk.  Go, Trump.”