Donald Trump does not promise change. He promises regression, returning to some squandered glory of the hegemony his supporters have lost because of change they could not control, change they resent, change that shares what they think of as their jobs, power, and birthright with others, with outsiders. Trump is not promising to change. He is promising to stop change.

View data skeptically by suggesting countermetrics. If the data is showing you what look like good results, ask yourself: “What else can I look at to convince me that these results aren’t as good as they seem?” These are called countermetrics, and every success metric should have some. (For example, don’t look at click-through rate without looking at the number of fast bounces back, d…