ROGER KIMBALL: They Can’t Bear the Thought That Trump’s Win Was No Anomaly.

In the deepest sense, what is at stake can perhaps be best formulated as a question. Was the 2016 election, or more specifically, was the election of Donald Trump a horrible anomaly, a sort of political black swan event?

I suspect that most of President Trump’s more doctrinaire opponents, from the Right or soi-disant Right as well as from the Left, believe this. Like many who support the president, I have often entertained myself on sleepy afternoons by watching one of the various compilations that have been made of the mocking predications that were made in the days leading up to the election. It’s good family fun. Those reactions, especially the stunned reactions on election night as the awful truth was born in upon the punditocracy, was partly amusing, partly alarming. It was amusing because of the discrepancy between the pundits’ smug self-assurance and the reality of Trump’s election. It was alarming because of the uncomprehending virulence of their response to what was, after all, a free, open, democratic election in which their gal happened to lose.

Yes, they keep telling us Trump is a crazy man who will destroy our institutions, as they respond crazily to his presidency by trying to destroy our institutions.