Think of Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly and a host of lesser Trump-enabling Fox News personalities — most of them northeastern white guys with outer-borough affects and more of ethnic Catholicism’s pugilism than its piety. Think of the Trump-voting Rudy Giuliani and the Trump-endorsing Post and even the not-quite-#NeverTrump Wall Street Journal editorial page.

They all have a style that reflects New York’s distinctive culture (worldly, striving, ever-so-slightly-impolite), and its distinctive right-of-center constituencies (Manhattan hedge funders, Staten Island cops). Which means that their conservatism differs, in large ways and small, from the conservatism of Utah or Texas or Wisconsin…

If Michele Bachmann were running on Trump’s exact platform, Hannity wouldn’t be running nightly infomercials for her candidacy. If Rick Santorum were promising to make America great again, The Post and The New York Observer wouldn’t be endorsing him. If Mike Huckabee were leading in the delegate count, The Journal’s editorial writers would have long ago gotten over their doubts about Ted Cruz.
But for Trump, these gatekeepers are willing to overlook, to forgive, or at least to tolerate. Because he’s a New Yorker, just like them.