[Written to a friend in Wisconsin who lost a friend arguing over Trump.]

As for Pompous Ass in Charge of Everything, I find the less I discuss it with his adoring groupies, the better off we both are, particularly if they are old friends. I almost lost my best friend over Bush, but after two years of not talking, he too concluded that Bush was full of shit. Not that I was blameless here. Bush lied about a lot of the actions he took back then. The planet continues to pay dearly for those lies and errors in judgement.

 

The Big Asshole is different. People who follow and support him do so for many reasons, a few of which are coherent, but most are founded in fear and loathing, as Hunter Thompson would say. They are afraid of losing the cherished conceit that white males are the Lords of the Universe, notions of self-worth and place on the planet that are under assault everywhere.

This cherished shibboleth is being dismantled by the people most damaged by white 'supremacy,' starting with women and non-whites, a vast majority of the world's people. The assumptions of natural superiority over other races and cultures are diluted with world population increases, diminishing white populations, and increasing anger from others for the intolerably rigged financial and legal system that has enabled ownership of everything to be held by a very few people.

The US Constitution is finally being seen for the bald racist enabler it is today, and those who worship the 'white supremacy' embedded in it are terrified that their credo will be abandoned as the fairy tale it is. Supremacists and their supporters are now at war with a world that can no longer tolerate the system it raised. 

 

Mr. T attracts yahoos and wealthy Brahmins alike: the ignorant want to preserve their unearned dignity and the wealthy want to preserve their constitutionally and legally embedded rights to steal everything they can get their hands on.

These fears have a basis in reality. Their reactions are predictable. It is so much easier to cling to ignorance and custom than to accept painful necessary change [striking at dignity?], even when it leads to bloodshed. There lies the history of humanity.

Assaults on white supremacy and wealth concentrations are being energized by climate change, population increases and world events  placing intolerable demands on the distorted worldwide financial and political order, both of which are based on infrastructures inherently incapable of coping with these stressors and meeting vital and mortal challenges in progress.

My conclusion

The situation will continue to generate vitriol and violence that will unhinge existing social order. I'm a pessimist that way, but optimistic that I can stay safe long enough to avoid major hardship and slip this mortal coil knowing I am so lucky to have lived a wonderful life in an amazing period of time. Being white and male no doubt made a lot of that possible and I'm not proud of that, just grateful in a weird way.