The fentanyl story is based on an argument about history: The United States went from greatness to crisis because open-border Democrats betrayed the honest, hardworking people of America by exporting jobs and allowing in foreign drugs. Stopping the drugs, Mr. Trump wants us to believe, will let the wholesome, traditional American culture that he idealizes flourish again. As a historian of drugs, I can tell you that this argument is wrong in almost every way.
There is no wholesome, traditional drug-free America that we can return to. Americans have always used a lot of drugs — even in the white suburbs and rural areas that Mr. Trump’s supporters call the “real America.”