A terrible irony of civil rights, obvious from the very outset but never, ever spoken of, was making itself manifest as the 2016 election approached. The civil rights approach to politics meant using lawsuits, shaming, and street power to overrule democratic politics. It encouraged—no, it required—groups of similarly situated people to organize against the wider society to defend their interests. Now it became clear that the members of any group that felt itself despised and degraded could defend its interests this way. Even whites.
