Trump, by contrast, rarely talks about the importance of people helping one another. In his speeches, civil society doesn’t exist. In 2012, Romney claimed that service to others guided his conduct before entering government. In his second debate with Obama, he talked about working as a missionary and pastor. In his acceptance speech, he depicted Bain Capital as a business that aimed to do more than merely make money. As an example, he cited its role in helping to create “an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons.”

Trump, by contrast, argued on Monday night that businessmen like himself can do whatever it takes to get rich, so long as they don’t violate the law. He essentially rejected the proposition that people should live by a moral code that goes beyond what is mandated by the state. And he discussed the country as a whole the same way. While George W. Bush saw “faith-based communities” as the answer to urban blight, Trump’s answer is stop and frisk. While Ryan praised his neighbors in Janesville for helping each other after a GM plant closed, Trump’s answer is for the president to force GM to stay. For more than a half century, conservatives have put families and communities at the center of their conception of a better America. For Trump, by contrast, the heroes are self-interested businessmen and a brutally powerful state. Profit is good; law is good; culture doesn’t matter.

It’s no coincidence that Republicans have nominated such a man at a time when working-class white Americans are suffering much of the familial and communal breakdown previously associated with African Americans. (And that Trump is doing poorly in Utah, a conservative state where social capital is unusually high). It’s easier to lecture people when you’re not trying to win their votes.