The founding generation was able to stifle those passions long enough to unify over the creation of the Constitution. We have no such moderate tendencies. Reactionary politics is driven by the knowledge that, as Hamilton also recognized, demagoguery provides an easier ascent to power than reason. The Left has known this for decades, which is why they labeled conservatives bigots in the 1960s, even as the Democratic party provided the base of support for segregation. But Americans quickly tired of the slander, and moved beyond it — until the Obama era, when it seemed to rise anew, in more virulent form. Hillary Clinton wasn’t speaking in the heat of passion when she declared half of her opponents’ supporters “deplorables” — she was drawing on a deep recent history of such nasty falsehoods. The Gillespie ad — the worst in political history — is merely the apotheosis of the trend.

Conservatives will respond in kind. Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush went out of their way to attribute kind motives to their political enemies; Donald Trump does no such thing. And why should he? After all, Reagan and Bush both met with left-wing opponents who excoriated them for their supposed “lies,” calling them war criminals and maniacs. So did candidates the Left pretended to tolerate, from John McCain to Mitt Romney. Trump has no moral opposition to trashing his opponents — in fact, he’s made a career out of it. His knee-jerk tendency to demonize his adversaries fits perfectly with the conservative desire to strike back at the Left.