An unusually acute examination of the American election from The Wall Street Journal by John O’Sullivan, Quadrant‘s interim editor. It is now almost universal among elite opinion on the right that Donald Trump is a disaster in the making, with an anyone but Trump the standard response. That there are people who classify themselves as Republican who would vote for Hillary over Trump only proves how empty their views must be about the nature of the problems that must be solved. If they really cannot see the certainty that Hillary would be the final nail in an American decline then it is beyond me why anyone should listen to a thing they say.

It is almost an understatement, at this point, to say that the Trump phenomenon has changed everything in American politics, but it has. Here’s a brief laundry list:

Immigration. From the start of this century, both Democratic and Republican elites have wanted to pass “comprehensive immigration reform” of a broadly liberal kind. Popular opposition prevented this, but the party elites headed off any movement toward a more restrictive approach. Mr. Trump, encouraged by the European migrant crisis, picked up the issue, made it the booster rocket of his campaign and now advances a policy that would reduce immigrant numbers overall. Comprehensive immigration reform is not quite dead, but it is collapsing.

Libertarianism. Young people were said to see it as a respectable modern version of conservatism. But libertarianism and its prophet, Sen. Rand Paul, have been pushed aside by the rush of popular support to Mr. Trump, who represents, if anything, a movement from libertarianism to activist government.

Isolationism versus interventionism. This was going to be the debate between Sen. Paul and Sen. Marco Rubio to determine the future direction of the GOP’s national security policy. Instead, despite remarks on Vladimir Putin that are silly and worse, Mr. Trump has swept aside this debate. He plays to a widespread mood in American life that is perturbed about Mr. Obama’s failing foreign strategy and responds, in effect, that the U.S. should fight “no more unwinnable wars.” Mr. Trump promises that he won’t pick fights but will definitely win those fights he gets into while pursuing a fairly narrow version of America’s national interest.

Reforming the welfare state. Walter Russell Mead, writing in the American Interest, has called for the reform of what he labels the “Blue State Model”—that is, the fiscally failing American welfare state of entitlements and urban programs, resting on budget-busting public sector salaries and pensions. Mr. Mead and others have advanced serious schemes for cuts that would make the system sustainable in the long run. Again, Mr. Trump has sweepingly promised to preserve entitlements against such reforms, discouraging other Republicans from making this tough case.

All this is true, but for myself, the most important change Trump may bring is a weakening of the media’s narrowing the range of acceptable opinion and some lessening of the grip that political correctness has on policy and public discourse. America is heading for the rocks and we will join them if nothing is done to turn things around. It is this most of all that O’Sullivan sees and understands making him alone of all of the major commentators to have accepted that Trump is not an unmitigated bad.