Donald Trump has puzzled many of us here inside the Beltway. “Sui Generis,” they call him. “Unprecedented” we repeat.

Unprecedented he is, in many ways. But in some important regards, Trumpism represents a return to the norm.

We have lived through an unusually ideological half century, which culminated with Barack Obama and the Tea Party. Donald Trump’s rise reflects the revenge of non-ideological, which again, may be the historic norm in this country.