The core argument of We Have Never Been Woke takes this contradiction as its entry point: namely, the appropriation of egalitarian social justice rhetoric by elites to serve their own ends. What’s more, not only do these elites view themselves as sincere champions of social justice causes (i.e., “true believers”), many go so far as to portray themselves as erstwhile victims of the prevailing order—no different than the marginalized communities they support. Victimhood, especially as it relates to trauma, plays a particularly important role in the mystification of social relations and the status obsession of elites.

It must have been shortly before Pennsylvania was called for Donald Trump, around the same time Joy Reid claimed on MSNBC that Kamala Harris had run a flawless campaign because she’d been endorsed by Queen Latifah, when I suddenly remembered Hillary Clinton had published a memoir titled What Happened.

You might expect Ohio voters to support politicians whose policies would help reverse this relative decline. But there’s a striking disconnect between who voters, especially working-class white voters, perceive as being on their side and politicians’ actual policies. For that matter … there’s a striking disconnect between voters’ views of what is happening with the economy and their personal experiences. It’s vibes all the way down.