This wasn’t exactly an unprecedented mix of ideas, and yet, just a year or two earlier, it hadn’t been anywhere close to taking over America. How had it ascended so quickly? I started seeing Trumpism’s arrival through the metaphor of a kaleidoscope. In the ones my kids own, translucent plastic pieces tumble into new designs as the barrel rotates, creating patterns that, after periods of hesitation, click into place. Politics, I came to think, were a kind of dark kaleidoscope. Familiar fears and anxieties shifted until they assumed novel, captivating configurations. Trumpism was such a pattern. It was a grim vision of society that didn’t make sense logically but, for some, held together for reasons of emotion or identity. If there really was a class of unaccountable, libertine global élites plundering the world, then wasn’t Trump obviously a member? You weren’t bothered by such questions if you liked what you saw through the kaleidoscope. For you, Trump was the one spinning the barrel—an observer of the pattern, rather than a part of it.