Stop sneering at Trump. It won't help.

On the whole, people can better tolerate being shouted at than being sneered at. And the sneer of the knowledge class was clearly a motivating factor for many Trump voters. They felt condescension from the commanding heights of the culture and set out to storm its highest point. The pose of late-night television — duplicated by many on the left — is a continuing provocation. It is the general, obnoxious attitude in which it is somehow permissible for the Democratic National Committee to hawk a T-shirt on its website saying, “Democrats give a sh*t about people.”

This leads to a second, divisive and counterproductive tendency among anti-Trump forces. For many on the left, the energy of opposition to the president is useful only to drive an existing agenda — and to drive the Democratic Party leftward. When women marched on the day after Trump’s inauguration, their platform included “open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion” — as though this was the natural position for all who have deep concerns about the president. Some talk of growing discontent as a “left-wing tea party” — as though this were finally the chance for MoveOn.org and the Occupy movement to complete their October Revolution in the Democratic Party.

Warns former Barack Obama official Michael Wear: “The Democratic Party should view Donald Trump’s takeover of the GOP as an opportunity to build a lasting majority. Instead, they view Trump as offering license to move further to the left on policy and still win.”