A “toxic mix of rage and delusion, and its concomitant sense of oppression, have become the defining political features of much of white America today,” writes Harper’s Magazine columnist Kevin Baker, on observing the conservative reaction to the re-election of President Barack Obama this week.

Neither white America nor white men have voted for a Democratic president since 1964, Baker writes, no matter how the national Democratic Party has attempted to contort itself to satisfy their prejudices, or how unhinged from reality the Republican opposition has become.