I don’t mean to be unkind to Brooks here but one of the major factors here is that the role of conservative writers has been to hide American conservatism’s actual intellectual progenitors. Trumpism won because it was never about Burke and Jefferson. https://twitter.com/nytdavidbrooks/status/1245791625567186945

Many of the conservatives I have known really thought it was about fiscal restraint and limited government because that’s what they care about, but that was never what animated the masses of GOP voters.

And in case it’s not clear, American history shows progressivism is not *inherently* anti-racist, and is hardly immune to a disconnect between its masses and its intellectuals. The nature of the coalition a movement answers to is what matters.