The establishment lacks imagination. The nationalists lack skill. Who will prevail?

The problem is that it seems the great majority of capable, hard-working, and decent people are establishmentarians. And the nationalist side is dangerously over-weighted with second raters and worse: simplifiers, cranks, opportunists, and haters.

That’s a problem because successful ideological revolutions are usually led by very capable people who had been excluded from the normal positions of power and influence. Idiots and opportunists can ruin and discredit the politics of a movement, especially an insurgency.

So far, the nationalists have achieved their greatest successes by simply scaring the establishment into adopting their ideas. France’s Socialist President Francois Hollande co-opted policies that had been supported only by the far-right National Front after waves of terror attacks forced his hand. And in Britain, the U.K. Independence Party and Tory backbenchers were able to transfer their primary cause to the Conservative leadership through the shock success of the Brexit referendum.

But that tricky bank shot doesn’t allay my pessimism.