"A bundle of irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas"

2. Here's the main point: the contemporary right-wing in the US has become, in Lionel Trilling's immortal words, a bundle of "irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas." It's just a tangle of resentments & bigotries, driven by the erosion of white privilege.

— David Roberts (@drvox) March 11, 2018