How supporting Trump became cool

For the past decade, the basic lines of conflict in American public life seemed clear. Donald Trump was pitted against the establishment, the ‘basket of deplorables’ who supported him against the elites. The reality was more complicated. Yes, plenty of rich and powerful Americans supported Trump and plenty of poorer Americans on the fringes of society were against him. But in a certain section of society the disdain for Trump was unequivocal. Among the country’s elite – at Harvard and Stanford, at Google and Goldman, near the beaches of the Hamptons and the mountains around Aspen – anyone who defied the anti-Trump consensus could expect swift consequences for their social standing.

There have been constant melodramas over this form of social ostracism. Two years ago, Alan Dershowitz – a formerly pro-Democrat lawyer who went from representing Mike Tyson and O.J. Simpson to arguing a key case for Trump – complained bitterly that the Chilmark Library on Martha’s Vineyard had failed to invite him to deliver a talk to well-heeled local vacationers, something he’d done annually for decades. ‘I’ve been cancelled, basically, by the Chilmark Library,’ he lamented to the New Yorker.

Supporting Trump could also have consequences far more serious than upsetting local librarians. As the tech publication the Information recently acknowledged, it could cost careers too: ‘It wasn’t so long ago that being a supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy in Democrat-leaning Silicon Valley – or even having a loose affiliation with him – was the kind of thing that earned you dirty looks, a pink slip from an employer and stern advice to rethink your life choices.’

Yet this seems to be changing. If a number of American commentators are to be believed, the country is undergoing an unexpected ‘vibe shift’.