Rarely is the global swell of anger recognized as a gendered feeling. Here and there, gender draws nods and honorable mentions. References to populist strongmen, for instance, or the follies of mask-ulinity. For the most part, though, neither descriptions nor explanations lead with gender. Gender is a side show to the main stage, which—if you haven't heard—features populism.

Just as we acquire a new taste for gender, we discover that few care to join the feast. Today's anger belongs to ordinary people, men and women, rising to reclaim their rightful place. A gender lens is too narrow and identityspecific—too minor for such a sweeping movement. Gender is beside the point. People are pretty sure of this, so a case to reconsider climbs uphill.

In Part II, we jump cut to populism because it is the main frame for processing aggrieved entitlement. We may as well start there. What better way to hone the sensory skills we just awakened than by sniffing out gender where it's said to be irrelevant? Populism it is, then.

That said, populism per se is not my concern, even as Part II will be trained on it. In case that sounds strange, let me clarify. What follows is no grand theory of populism. I don't have much of a stance in the abstract. Nor am I a definitional purist, concerned with what ‘true’ populism is or should be. As the daughter of populist sympathizers, I learned to think of it provisionally. It all depends on where things are going.

Perhaps that's why I’m most interested in what is happening right now under the banner of populism. What uses are its sign and form serving, regardless of whether you think they’re poorly or properly applied? You already know I’m not convinced that populism is the best name for today's grievance politics. That's not to say it's the wrong one, just not revealing enough.

Please hear this loud and clear. Correspondence (is/ is not) and ideological evaluation (good/ bad content) are not the games I want to play here. I care less about what populism is or what it says, and more about how it feels and what it does. What sort of world does it long to bring about? I seek to make ‘better sense’ of the current version. Meaning, I want a fuller appreciation of the feeling that fuels it.