Mr. Trump’s election and Brexit together underscore a central facet of these times. The old ideological divisions of left and right have effectively been eclipsed by a new economic taxonomy — those who have benefited from globalization and those who have not.

In Britain, affluent communities of professionals who hire Romanians to clean their homes and who enjoy getaways to Spain overwhelmingly voted to stay in the European Union. Industrial communities that have lost jobs as manufacturing has shifted east — to Eastern Europe, Turkey and Asia — generally voted to leave.

In the United States, college-educated urbanites making a comfortable living in the quintessential trades of globalization — finance, technology and media — disdained Mr. Trump. People in the center of the country who lack degrees and have seen jobs transferred to China and Mexico played a leading role in delivering the White House to Mr. Trump.

In northeastern England (something like the Rust Belt of Britain) people who voted to leave Europe speak openly about doing so to punish those who beseeched them to vote to stay — people like the exceedingly unpopular former prime minister David Cameron. The situation is so depressed, it cannot get worse, the logic runs. Any economic pain will fall on wealthy Londoners, people say.

But that is almost certainly nonsense. A rupture of trade with Europe is likely to hit these industrial communities hardest. And if that happens, the people living there will be angrier than ever.

Mr. Trump drew support from factory town laborers who have traditionally voted for Democrats but did not trust Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Many recall how her husband forged the North American Free Trade Agreement, which helped cause a shift of American manufacturing to Mexico. If Mr. Trump does not find a way to satisfy their high expectations, these people are likely to feel deceived.

And any proposals need to navigate the reliably treacherous politics of Washington. The latest piece of Trump real estate, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, sits just down the street from a Capitol full of people who got themselves elected in part by railing against deficits and promising to cut federal spending.