Mark Bauerlein Talks to Kelefa Sanneh About the Intellectual Case for Trump

Mark Bauerlein is an unlikely Trump supporter: a socially conservative Catholic intellectual who grew up idolizing Martin Luther King, Jr. He once blogged about his distress at people cursing in public. Bauerlein believes in standards. But, as an English professor at Emory University, he became so concerned about what he sees as the oppressiveness of political correctness that he came to celebrate Trump’s violation of taboos—no matter how cringe-worthy. For Bauerlein, Trump is a figure out of Hegel, a “world-historical figure” who arises at the right time to bring about a necessary change in society.