There’s a lot of lessons in Trump’s ascendancy that illuminate much of what we don’t want to admit about race relations in the US. One thing we don’t want to admit is how recently did racism become a vice; before a certain point, all American Presidents, including those who were Civil Rights heroes (Lincoln, Grant, Coolidge, FDR, Truman), were publicly and unapologetically, racist. Racism was so normal, certain, and essential, that civil rights stands were not in contradiction to a racist character, but being non-racist was weird.

The first President who we can safely say was not racist was Republican Eisenhower, and he was elected very recently, 1953, so I know some people reading this remember him. He began the Civil Rights Revolution that Democrat Truman before him attempted to spark, but failed to, because of Democratic Party infighting. The last President to get away with public racism was Democrat Johnson, Eisenhower’s ally in the Senate and the greatest of all Civil Rights champions to grace the White House; he was swept into office, unelected, in 1963, a thousand days after Eisenhower departed it. After Johnson, a man like Johnson becoming President was unimaginable, and that a man like Johnson could also be a Civil Rights leader was even more so. That’s a lot of cultural change in a really narrow window of time.

Our souls change slower than our public attitudes, and no one knew that better than the often crude and ugly Johnson. One of his most telling observations:

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

This lengthy preamble leads us to some very contemporary facts: Whites about to cease to be an absolute majority in the US. Also, in this sluggish recovery wherein a booming economy lacks even modestly fair distribution of wealth that both Eisenhower and Johnson administrations enjoyed, “white privilege,” never discussed as much as it is now, has also never felt more threatened. The election of the first black President has dragged all the sins that we lied to ourselves into believing we had overcome back out into the open, and I have been forced to admit we were not as good a people as we thought we were. Obama’s thoughtful opponents are increasingly embarrassed with the ugliness of many of the people they are thrown in with. I’m not an Obama opponent, but I feel really feel for his opponents who are honest when they say it’s only about policy, because they are stuck with cretins, unwanted but un-expellable, who are just trying to invent new dog-whistle alternatives to screaming “Nigger” -- and by that I mean groups like the Birthers, and by that I mean each and every single one of the Birthers.

Interestingly, Black life-expectancy has been creeping up. Also, for decades, Hispanics proved themselves remarkably long-lived across all economic sub-classes, leaving the CDC to scratch its head as to why. But suddenly White life expectancy started dropping, and this drop has been attributed to self-abuse: O.D.s, chronic conditions exacerbated by obesity and addiction, and notably suicide. These are symptom of America’s growing White rage, like the Black rage of decades past that brought us pseudo-political-parties that flirted with, or unconditionally indulged in, terrorism. Unsurprisingly, terrorists in the USA who represent the various “White rage” philosophies kill more innocents on our soil than any imported ideology like Jihadism. Every single year of the last thirty-five (except one, 2001 was the exception) has a higher body-count for terrorists with home-grown philosophies than imported ones; despite this the Jihadis keep getting far more media attention.

The Tea Party, and now Trump’s Presidential bid, is all about White rage, and nothing but White rage -- the very few lawn-jockey non-whites trying to crash that party don’t change its reality one lick. It’s all about the “makers vs takers” myth that has no bearing on any economic or social reality. And when Trump, former leader of the Birthers, a man without ideas or ideals, encourages his mob to indulge in vigilante violence and they rapturously cheer him on in their willful ignorance and animalistic blood-lust; they embrace his promises of statutory discrimination, war crimes, self-destructive trade wars, and utter disdain for a Constitution he displays no evidence of having ever read.

If you support Donald Trump, you are publicly declaring your moral degeneracy. You have embarrassed this nation and I’m sick of you.

Early in the Civil Rights movement there was rhetoric among the best educated Blacks that the goal was to “uplift the race.” It was always problematic rhetoric because to was so patronizing to other, poorer, and less educated Blacks. I have never understood that posturing better than I do now; as I look at America today a new concept, something completely alien to me a very short time ago, has crystalized in my thinking:

A very large group of White people have started to shame me – as a White man.

I as a white man in this hour of need I begin to wonder, what can "uplift" my race?

S