To me, it feels like the 1980s, which for many of us of a certain age was our introduction to a Republican Party that was about ideas. Supply-siders and evangelicals and Cold Warriors had competing priorities in those years, but there was an underlying consensus that were we all, in some larger and more important sense, on the same side. After the chaos of the 1960s and the stagnation of the 1970s, conservatives finally had a shot at governing, and nothing was off-limits for honest debate among us.

That feeling is in the air once again, especially now that the Republican convention’s Rules Committee has voted to shut down any formal challenge to Trump in Cleveland. This effectively ends fruitless parliamentary maneuvers. Instead, Republicans must now stand in the open and argue, right through to November, over the virtue of the party’s nominee (such as it is) and the quality of his ideas (such as they are).

In the end, to be a Never-Trump Republican is to feel a sense of relief, even of liberation, after the surreal craziness of the primary season. Donald Trump’s hijacking of the party is now no longer a threat but a fact, and to oppose him is to feel normal again by embracing clarity and principle against opportunism and crass huckstering.

Bracing as it is, this is not always a comfortable place to be. Not long ago, an old friend came to visit. We grew up together, and he’s now a working man who made a life in our hometown, eventually owning a home and raising children there. He understood how I felt about Trump, he told me, but “things had to change.” I asked him what, exactly, he would change. This is a question I’ve posed to many of my friends who are Trump supporters, because they’ve done well in postindustrial America and yet still see themselves as disadvantaged.