The Audience for Politics

I don't at all mean this as a defense of Trump, but at some level our visceral response to him might be born of the fact that we've been able to take for granted that we've been the audience for politics. While many of us have had serious problems with administrations in the past, they at least recognized the necessity of speaking to us, even if that speech was just lies. But being lied to is better than being ignored, and we're now being ignored. Trump doesn't care about us, and to the extent that he does, it's mostly because he enjoys our reaction to him. And I suspect the way we now feel is the way that many have long felt.