How Much Longer Can The Politics Of Grievance Sustain Itself?:

Racism and right-wing politics weren't anything new for Trump, but like many personalities who make for good television, people were happy to ignore it for the sake of the show. When Obama became president, and an angry alliance of embittered conservatives called the Tea Party decided a black guy with a scary-sounding name was a bridge too far, Trump found the perfect parade of dipshits to step in front of and lead. Trump put a charismatic spin on the politics of grievance. He became a champion for the segment of the population that felt denied their rightful place in the upper echelons of American society, due, in their minds, not to their own personal shortcomings, but rather to a bunch of uppity women, minorities, and immigrants who had rewritten the rulebook in favor of themselves.

Whatever belligerent fantasy the openly white-nationalist administration had of maintaining the moral high ground, or even of just getting the country to quietly acquiesce to domestic militarized occupation, has not proven so.

So much of this unnecessary violence comes down to the simple truth that, as America becomes more truly multicultural and whiteness becomes one of a plurality of experiences instead of the sole dominant one, those who feel their cultural significance waning have lashed out. And if they lack the power to recover what they believe they've lost, well, they will settle for exercising the power to burn down everything that remains.

But this is what fascism does: creating senseless violence in an effort to maintain a status quo that benefits a small group of the most powerful who refuse to accept that people with less than them should also get a say.

America now has to decide how long this stain on its soul can linger on before we finally cut out the cancer.