And on the ground, says Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.), the sense of “disrespect” felt by “people who have lost work to new machines, technology and, in some cases, globalization” is palpable. This is what links cultural unease to economic anguish. Esty, whose district includes ailing industrial cities such as Waterbury and New Britain, has been warning Democrats for months about Trump’s appeal to displaced workers.

“I do not disrespect the people who support him,” Esty said of Trump. “I find him loathsome, but what he has tapped into is real.”

Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster, pointed to NBC News/Wall Street Journal surveys showing that voters who say the Great Recession is still having an impact on them are more likely than other voters to support Trump.

And Eric Hauser, strategic adviser at the AFL-CIO, said that both parties need to face the obvious: that “there is a lot of rage in this country.”