Trump is suddenly “winning” as a political figure because the political class has failed. The authority of our political institutions is weak and getting weaker; it’s not that Americans ‘lack trust’ in them, as blue ribbon pundits and sociologists often lament, so much as they lack respect for the people inside them…

Even though, as Tocqueville observes, money really is more important in democratic times, money is not the measure of all things. We — we Republicans, we Democrats, we Americans — still need politicians who can rule wisely, bravely, and well. Look at what’s behind the huge novelty of Trump’s rise, and you find a venerable truth. There is no substitute for statesmen.