The arrival of Sarah Palin brings a special something to the 2016 campaign, like a little LSD added to the punch bowl. Are we watching C-SPAN, or a reality TV show, or a “Saturday Night Live” skit? It is impossible to tell without consulting the channel guide.

Ted Cruz may have secured the coveted “Duck Dynasty” blessing. But Palin is the original and best representative of Kardashian conservatism. Her endorsement of Donald Trump was entirely devoid of policy content — a speech that did not even aspire to shallowness. It is enough that Trump is “going rogue” and “ticking people off” and “media heads are spinning.”

Palin has been entirely consumed and replaced by her own bitterness against a Republican establishment she feels betrayed her and against a media that mocked her. More than anything else, she clings to resentment and rage. And her revolution, over time, has become comprehensive; not just a revolt against elites, but a revolt against syntax and taste and preparation and reason.

The phenomenon of Palin raises the question: Does populism need to be anti-intellectual? The answer is: No. The populist mythology surrounding Abraham Lincoln was not only the rail-splitter born in a log cabin, but the youth who studied books by candlelight. He was, indeed, dismissed as a rube. But he wasn’t one. He quoted Shakespeare with ease and suffused politics with thought.