Been think about the win and I think was really bothers me is that it destroys be belief that America was slowly becoming socially more equitable. I think I truly believed that Trump wasn't electable because he's Trump and its not 1954 anymore. This bothers me more than the things he's going to do.
There's an old debate in the Tribe--not old by Tribe standards, mind, but old enough to have largely fallen out of its collective memory here in the U.S.
until the recent present--where one side says, "A country that tears itself apart to defend the honor of a small Jewish captain is somewhere worth going," and the other side points out that an innocent man had do a nickle in the can and wait over a decade to finally be exonerated while the most vibrant liberal republican society of its era behaved more like a quinquagenarian trying to find his or herself after divorce number two than the most vibrant liberal republican society of its era.
If we accept the notion that this election was, to a meaningful extent (and in spite of the odiousness of the victor, Scout's honor), about white poverty, the following message was still conveyed to far too many people by it: when faced with privation, or even something utterly banal like having to work harder at making an obsolete way of life sustainable in the modern world*, the American body politic will throw you under the bus without reservation or remorse. I understand the need to humanize people who voted this way--many of you count them as friends, neighbors, partners, et cetera (to say nothing of trying to humanize everyone when presented with the opportunity not to do so)--but ball don't lie at the end of the day.
*The obvious example here being the Amish, even down to the wilful education deficit.
