Donald Trump is not the first president to return to the White House after losing a previous reelection bid, but he is the first to do it after being impeached twice and facing mass resignations of Cabinet secretaries at the close of his first term. The depths from which Trump has risen to regain the most powerful office in the world is a testament to his determination and skill as a communicator. But it is also a searing indictment of a political establishment that has ignored and condemned voters’ legitimate concerns about the direction of the country.

Before Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator in June 2015, a bipartisan governing consensus in Washington was that unlimited amounts of both immigration and trade were unalloyed benefits to the country. Democrats, who guided or bullied this consensus into being, suggested America has a duty to take in any migrant from anywhere in the world, no matter their culture or educational background. Many Republicans believed migrants were essential for economic growth and did not care that their influx depressed the wages of blue-collar workers. Nor did either side pay much mind to the ways this frayed the cultural fabric of the nation.