Gerson

For American conservatives, this is the most frightening aspect of the British vote. Since 1955, with the founding of National Review, conservatives have attempted to make ideological arguments ­— involving respect for free markets and civil society — that they hoped would win influence in the United States’ center-right party. But now that entire project seems threatened. The type of populism that Donald Trump has unleashed is not a set of arguments, but a set of tendencies and prejudices. In large portions of the Republican Party, ideology has been replaced by identity.

We are familiar with identity politics on the left, which can reduce public life to the organized appeasement of resentments. An identity politics of the right asserts that the real United States — or the real England — is being diluted and corrupted by outsiders. It elevates a form of nationalism, based not on abstract ideals, but on blood and soil.