In 1899, Thorstein Veblen published The Leisure of the Theory Class. It popularized the terms conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. Veblen, imbued with the austerity of his Norwegian immigrant parents, argued that the rich buy uselessly expensive things and indulge in uselessly expensive leisure activities to assert their superiority over the rest of society. Veblen’s strictures don’t describe American society today: Affluent people work more hours than those with average and low earnings, and increasingly dress casually, even if they’re returning now to downtown offices. But what an unprecedentedly large number of affluent Americans — defined in polls as white college graduates, living in fashionable city neighborhoods or in comfortable high-end suburbs — have been conspicuously consuming, in their leisure hours and even at work, is politics. And a particular kind of politics, one that...