First, conservatives used to stand up for “creative destruction,” the rise and fall of businesses and entire industries, which is an intrinsic part of a dynamic free market. If you’re not a hard-core Libertarian, the average conservative has considered the solution to this problem to be a safety net and tax, education and other policies that allow workers to rebound; it has never been to halt the marketplace or shift to a government-planned economy. The latter has been tried and has failed, as conservatives are quick to point out when ridiculing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or other anti-capitalist wags. It also exempts these voters from responsibility for their lives. The coal town is depopulated? Yes, that’s sad, but why are they not moving — as immigrants do — to where the jobs are?

Second, the ills about which Trump and his apologists complain have little to do with the plight of many of their supporters (whose average salary is $72,000, much higher than that of the average Sanders or Hillary Clinton supporter). The things Trump demonizes — free trade and immigration — did not cause the decline of low-skilled manufacturing (automation did that); they have, however, contributed to the resurgence of high-skill manufacturing in the United States to such an extent that we have record numbers of unfilled manufacturing jobs. If Trump were railing about the lack of job training programs, that would be one thing, but he is not, of course. Constructive measures that do not involve attacks on others are of no concern to him. He’s simply casting about for targets for white, lower-class rage.

There is no virtue in pandering to Trumpkins at the expense of every other group and the country’s general prosperity. In making these white males (and only them) into victims and encouraging them to blame outsiders or menacing forces beyond their control, Trump does what Republicans used to accuse liberals of doing — pitting one group against another in a zero-sum conception of the economy. It is doing the Trumpkins no favors and it is heightening dissension in a country that needs to rediscover common values and shared endeavors and undertake some systemic reforms in government, education and criminal justice.