Some time ago, the public intellectual Milton Himmelfarb put his finger on what the current presidential campaign is all about. Referring to his fellow Jews, he said that they “earn like Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans.” Never mind the rearview mirror of PC tut-tutness, what Himmelfarb had observed was that not all the people all the time vote their pocketbooks. It’s not always the economy, stupid.

Himmelfarb, who died in 2006, lived long enough to see his quip extended to other social, ethnic and cultural groups. In 2004, Thomas Frank did just that with his book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” It wasn’t just that the state had gone deeply conservative, it was that its voters were doing away with programs that benefited them. Ideology was overshadowing economics.

Now Donald Trump proves the same point. We have oodles of polling data to show that Trump’s supporters are typically white males who topped out in high school. They are supposedly forlorn, adrift, not living better than their fathers and seeing their sons about to live even worse than they do. Trump, with his anti-immigrant, anti-trade and anti-China policy promises to change all that. This check will forever be in the mail.

There is, however, some contrary evidence that money alone is not at the root of the Trump evil. More recent studies suggest that racial and cultural isolation also play a role — maybe a dominant one. Trump’s appeal may not, at bottom, be economic. It might be just plain emotional.

Trump has an economic message, of course, but it’s beside the point. He doesn’t really have a jobs program, he has a get-even program. His appeal is visceral, emotional, nationalistic. He instinctively knows something about resentment and pride and the place they play when someone enters the voting booth. I don’t think he’s given these matters a moment’s thought. On the contrary, they come naturally to him. He makes his people feel good. He makes them feel proud. He makes them feel as Americans should. It’s a feeling I yearn for myself, although not at the cost of voting for Trump.

Hillary Clinton’s response to all this is quintessentially Hillary Clinton. Her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was — in the harshest put-down of all — one of her best efforts, but it was bloodless, an endless train of programs and ideas, all of them good, but none of them producing a snappy salute. She is the school’s principal. Trump is the football coach.

Trump’s advantage is that he has enemies — Mexicans, Muslims, the Chinese, criminals, idiotic government regulations, the media and, by inference, a smothering political correctness that inhibits speech, seasoning hate with frustration. Never mind that his enemies are really scapegoats; he enables the angry and frustrated to vent.

Hillary Clinton represents the changed America. Her enemies are hers alone — the vast right-wing conspiracy, for instance — but not those of wretched white males. She promises them a job, but they have heard that before. What they want is pride, status, a return to when white males owned the culture, understood the culture, were the culture. Trump offers them the past. For that, they’ll sacrifice the future anytime.

© 2016, Washington Post Writers Group