From the rise of the talk-radio rabble rousers to Karl Rove’s effort to build a permanent governing majority by mobilizing the religious right, from the founding of Fox News to starbursts for Sarah Palin and flattery for Tea Party furies, conservative intellectuals have been quite sure that they and the voters stand shoulder to shoulder on the same side of a chasm separating them from the liberal establishment. Hence the intellectuals’ enthusiasm for building a conservative counter-establishment of think tanks, magazines, and other media outlets to do battle with liberal elites. Hence also the presumed wisdom of using these ostensibly conservative institutions to keep the grassroots whipped up into a state of perpetual indignation and agitation. After all, an angry electorate is an electorate that shows up to the polls on Election Day. What could possibly go wrong?

What, indeed.

Now these same intellectuals feel like they’ve suddenly awoken from a blissful dream of direct democracy to find themselves in a Madisonian nightmare in which the American people have been transformed overnight into a fickle, easily manipulated mob. It’s unclear just what these voters want, beyond someone who’ll relentlessly, fearlessly skewer every establishment, very much including the conservative counter-establishment — and of course threaten to kick out the thieving, raping, murdering Mexicans.