Thread.

I've made no secret of the "side" I've chosen in the current and seemingly-complete political schism - a divide that I must peer across to have contact with a great number of my family and friends.

For me, and hopefully for many of you, I've tried to channel my frustration into an effort to understand the other side, as difficult as that has been at a moment of true cognitive dissonance and a daily degradation of norms and decorum.

We've observed a coalescing of effort and growing influence on the left on the part of particular segments of identity amidst the American populace. The long-awaited empowerment of BLM, various LGTBQ groups, American women and others have been celebrated on our side.

From within the Left, we see the increasing momentum of these groups as justified and overdue justice, and the diversity amongst American progressives as a source of enlightenment and strength.

Let's wedge ourselves into the shoes of White Americans for a moment - in particular, White folks who generally live amidst and interact on a peer-parity level with only other White folks, and always have.

These are mostly normal, hard-working, good people - but their heightened sense and celebration of "tradition" (a.k.a. "the way things have always been"), coupled with a lack of experience in dealing with non-White people on any personal level other than subservience...

...Have generally prevented any true understanding of the concept of White privilege, or the inherent injustices of American history - not only those of the past, but the ways in which they have established the present.

They lack the motivation to have ever really considered these concepts, or seen the need to understand them - they are utterly foreign, and thus false.

At a moment when Black Americans are coming together for power, and American women are coming together for power, and LGTBQ Americans are coming together for power, and a myriad of other marginalized groups are doing the same...

...A great number of White Americans have also chosen to silo up - with Donald Trump as their leader and standard-bearer. By their internal logic, why wouldn't they?

Especially with an entire wing of our electronic media amplifying the call of the President for Whites to unify and defend their suburban and rural turf by casting these newly-empowered groups and their supporters in their crumbling and rioting cities as agitators and traitors?

Especially with warnings from the top that our upcoming election - in which their leader is likely to be deposed, their position of cultural control lost along with him - is already ridden with fraud?

A great swath of White America has been frightened into fear of anarchy and violence eventually aimed directly towards their communities, families and traditions - which they consider analogous with America itself.

I may be stating the obvious here: Trump and his loyal, boisterous following represent a newly compartmentalized coalescing of the White American agenda - the same that has ruled our country from its Founding - as it stands separate from the overall modern American experience...

...In which it faces real competition for dominance for the first time.

It can be seen as both a part of and a reaction to the same process by which other disparate segments of the American demographic spectrum are also separating to focus on furthering their own goals and empowerment.

Viewed that way, it makes more sense, but is no less frightening - White Americans are the only of these groups with the majority of American governmental structures seemingly at their backs.

Faced with a perceived decision between an obviously awful leader and the potential loss of all they know and hold dear, they've picked what they consider the lesser of two evils: the awful leader.

For Trump supporters, it's not about Trump's personal failings, or any sense of truth, morality or justice - for them, the attempt at an American melting pot has failed, and it's now Us versus Them - in a struggle that could be for all the marbles.

The End.