As the Donald Trump jamboree has played on — and blown out amps — some progressive thinkers have started to see its upside.

Sure, the tycoon-candidate might have forced the Republican Party’s immigration discussion to the right; that was July’s outrage. But his staying power, and the enemies he’s accrued, have gotten campaign reformers and supporters of Great Society liberalism to see the upside in Trump. Here was a Republican candidate telling voters he would not cut Social Security — that fast economic growth would remove the need to even talk about it — and that “hedge-fund guys” needed to pay higher taxes. And he was winning.

“Donald Trump is the first candidate since [John] McCain to essentially break the Republican candidate monopoly on taxes,” wrote New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait last week. “Trump’s defense of federal retirement programs aligns him with his voters and against the fervent desires of Republican insiders, whose preferences are reflected in the non-Trump field. … Trump has revealed, again, the brittleness of the grip of anti-tax zealots upon the Republican Party.”