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It also suggests a reason for why that politics is so effective — and why mainstream Washington’s frantic attempts to anathematize the Trumpian style might paradoxically have increased its appeal.

Mr. Von Drehle anathematized the actions of the Mississippi legislators as being in “open defiance” when they passed a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks.

Disagreeing with certain ideas, however, is very different from anathematizing the collective work of a host of paradigm-shifting thinkers.

Or, as William F. Buckley Jr. put it in his quest to purge the Birchers from conservatism 60 years ago, linkage with extremists might allow the media “to anathematize the entire American right wing.”

They will also frequently anathematize the fellow, reducing him to a vulgar epithet for a body part.