I’ve been saying this for years: the Tea Party is/was Stonewall for people who see themselves as normal — a necessary if boring step in the process of straight, white, ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ taking their rightful place as a minority in a more diverse America. They’ve seen the parade of new legitimacies go by for decades and they’ve felt left out. Acting out in the form of the TP gave them their moment in the sun, and this giddy, delirious, awkward quality of Trump rallies is their variation of coming out: “Wait… I can really say these things? In public? I’ll be OK?… OMG, I CAN DO THIS!” The problem is that most — not all, not yet — of what they have to say is, as Bowie put it, the same old kid in brand-new drag. And very angry, as they realize how much of their entitlement was imaginary. But: it gets better.
(NYT)