In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s unforeseen election win, there has been much anguished self-scrutiny on the part of Democratic party members, urbanites, intellectuals, upper-middle-class professionals, and others who could not imagine this political outcome. Many have rightly pointed to the fractured isolation of contemporary American life: city dwellers isolated from ruralites, whites from blacks, bourgeoisie from the working class, Republican from Democrat, and so on. No member of this democracy should remain untroubled by the erosion of dialogue and solidarity across the chasms dividing the country’s polity.
Yet one kind of isolation that played a small bu