Clinton has, herself, assumed the cool posture of the in-the-know Twitter enforcer who shames people for their garbage posts: “Delete your account,” she tweeted at Trump in June. For people who have never actually set foot in a college classroom, this can all feel like a bad dream where you’re handed the final exam for a class you never attended.
Meanwhile, Trump plays the troll. He has seized on the insecurity of people who are being called out by cultural elites for racism and insensitivity when what they may really be is genuinely uninformed. He makes a virtue of that ignorance — and transforms it into a legitimate identity. “I love the poorly educated,” he said at a February rally.
Amanda Hess, “Gag Order”, The New York Times Magazine (24 July 2016), 14.