More significant, I think, is what’s right there on the surface — in, for instance, Hawley’s strong endorsement of Chris Arnade’s important new book, Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America. The book is a powerful, wrenching look — in both words and photographs — of the struggles and suffering of Americans who live economically and spiritually far removed from the elites who run the country and its leading enterprises and institutions. Unlike the million-and-one journalistic profiles of Trump voters that focus only on rural whites, Arnade traveled widely in researching and writing his book, highlighting people of all races and political views living in a broad range of communities, urban as well as rural.

Dignity has received most of its initial review attention and praise from conservatives. That’s in part because it was published by Sentinel, the conservative imprint of Penguin Books. But to dismiss the laudatory response, including Hawley’s, as an expression of partisanship is to miss what’s most important about it. A conservative publisher, a wide range of conservative writers, and the conservative Republican senator from Missouri are all supporting a book that powerfully indicts economic policies pursued and defended by a long line of Republican presidents and lawmakers. (That many of those policies were also endorsed by Democrats doesn’t soften the point.)

That’s a big deal — and a dramatic shift that could upend the political spectrum as we know it.