The Not-Quite-Anti-Woke Caucus
Adam Smith is a standard boomer Democrat—born in 1965, technically a year after the generational cutoff, but he still uses an AOL account, which pushes him over the line. He likes to read books about the high stakes of democracy: he recently finished one about America’s divisions after the Civil War and another about how China is taking over the Western world. His parents were working class, which is central to his self-mythos; he came into his own during the Clinton years, and has never quite let go of the now unfashionable idea that politicians should talk up hard work and personal responsibility. To be sure, he opposes Donald Trump’s agenda, but recently he’s been feeling alone in his own party—so much focus on identity, the evils of capitalism, and concepts like “settler colonialism” i...