“While reporting this story, I drove from New York to California. During all those days on the highway, with lots of time on my hands for theorizing, generalizing, and speaking my generalized theories into my iPhone while swerving off into the spacious landscape, I thought about this idea of…”
“Above all, Trump supporters are ‘not politically correct,’ which, as far as I can tell, means that they have a particular aversion to that psychological moment when, having thought something, you decide that it is not a good thought, and might pointlessly hurt someone’s feelings, and therefore…”
“The ability to shrug off the mean crack, the sexist joke, the gratuitous jab at the weak is, in some quarters, seen as a form of strength, of ‘being flexible,’ of ‘not taking shit serious.’ A woman who wilts at a sexist joke won’t last long in certain workplaces. A guy who prioritizes the sensitive…”
“What allows a person not crazy about Trump to vote for him is a certain prioritization: a person might, for example, like Trump’s ideas about trade, or his immigration policies, or the fact that Trump is, as one supporter told me, ‘a successful businessman,’ who has ‘actually done something,’ unlike…”