[P]olitics is always just a few steps away from The Lord of the Flies... - Charlie Sykes

"More than a century before Mills and Nisbet, Alexis de Tocqueville had remarked upon the uneasiness of the citizens of the young republic, who "are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their hands", an attitude that "throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart".

The result of this attitude was the peculiar paradox of the American character. While residents of the Old World, in far less advantageous circumstances, tended not to dwell on their misfortunes, Tocqueville found that Americans "are forever boding over advantages they do not possess . . . It is strange to see with what feverish ardor the Americans pursue their own welfare, and to watch the vague dread that constantly torments them lest they should not have chosen the shortest path which may lead to it"."

Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very
few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on
your own time.

How did a movement that was defined by its belief in individual liberty and respect for the Constitution, free markets, personal responsibility, traditional values, and civility find itself embracing a stew of nativism, populism, and nationalism?