How did Donald Trump defy all the pollsters, the pundits, and the Twitterverse "experts" and take the White House? According to the Democrats, it was all a Russian plot – Kremlin-directed Twitter "bots" spread "misinformation" and "fake news," Russian hackers stole the DNC's emails, and this deprived Hillary Clinton of her rightful place as President of these United States. If we listen to the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, it was all because their man Bernie failed to win the nomination due to corporate influence and the flawed election strategy of the Clinton campaign. And the Republicans tell us it was because – well, they don't have any coherent theory, but, hey, they'll take it regardless of why or how it happened.

What hasn't emerged from the shock and horror of the elites, however, is a reasonably convincing explanation for the Trump victory: the storied "deplorables," as Mrs. Clinton described them, rose up in rebellion against the coastal elites and delivered them a blow from which they are still reeling. Disdained, forgotten, and left behind, these rural not-college-educated near-the-poverty-line voters, who had traditionally voted Democratic, deserted the party – but why?