I'm increasingly concerned by analysis of the MAGA crowd resenting "coastal elites" because they control culture - art & entertainment. I think it's a valid observation, but I wonder if it's a harbinger of the cultural revolutions we saw in China and Laos.

I'm not being alarmist, I'm genuinely concerned. Most artists and writers I know, and I know of, are from working class backgrounds. One of the reasons I left the industrial Midwest at 19 is so many people told me, "You can't be that. You can't do that."

I've often tried to explain to people about "Hollywood Elite" that one of the reasons artists,particularly in Hollywood, tend to be liberal is they lived on ramen noodles, had multiple roommates - they were poor and obscure before they were rich and famous. They belong to unions.

I'm not sure, however, how to address that anxiety among the MAGA class. For five years we've heard it was economic anxiety, but now it's "cultural alienation"? Jealousy? Resentment?

The interconnectedness of this era allows people to peek into each others lives like it never has.The culture of grievance on the right, it seems,stems out of an unwillingness to examine long-held beliefs and prejudices, and being reminded those attitude are no longer acceptable.

People want confirmation about being white, or racist, or, well, not intellectually curious. How else do you explain Morgan Wallen's record sales spiking 1220% the day after he's recorded using a racial slur? It's people supporting their brand.

I wish I had a prescription to end this thread. I don't think this is a case of "naming the problem is 50% of solving it". There really is no way to morally reconcile racism or prejudice in a nation founded on the principle that all people are created equal. Ideas? Anyone?

I remember studying the conditions required for a messiah to arise in Anthro back in the day. What precedes the rise of a messiah, in almost all cases, is a the "perception of cultural deprivation". In our situation, Trump rises as a messiah, angry he's not part of the elite -

despite having the money, education, and even geographical origin to be among them. Why? Because of his behavior. Performers and athletes don't shun him because of his beliefs, they shun him because he's an asshole. He gives license for grievance based on nothing --

more than the feeling that "people won't let me in because "I'm hateful, and racist, and fearful of the other. Why do I get no love?" I listen, I really do, to what his followers and the opportunists who seized his culture of grievance to promote their agenda say. It's all feels

no thought. Sure, the old line "fiscally conservative, drown government in the bathtub" crowd will ride the wave the same way the racists do. "He cut taxes, he cut regulation, he uh, fixed trade?" But those are not the reasons the MAGA crowd stormed the Capitol.

When faced with overwhelming evidence that the principals you want to preserve cannot be ethically justified,you project more heinous motivations to your perceived enemy.Thus the Hollywood Game Night Baby Eating, Blood Drinking, Space Laser Fire Starting,Hebrew Elite, is created.

As an artist, as a citizen, as a human being, I don't see how to reconcile, to fix, the feeling of cultural deprivation people are experiencing with the principals of equal opportunity and equal justice that our country was founded on (and still strives to achieve). But...

-the bodies that are supposed to protect and preserve those principals, has to take an ethical stand. We can't silo justice. We can't silo democracy. We can't silo reality. The next time a messiah of grievance arises, the cultural revolution riot might come for us. For you.