cabanaboy

Trump is just the trigger. There are deep historical forces: The dismantling of the FCC fairness doctrine by Reagan, the resulting emergence of Fox News, conservative talk radio, and other propaganda outlets, the removal of guardrails for the influence of money in politics (e.g. Citizen United), the continuous reduction of taxes on high incomes, the ever-increasing wealth and income inequalities enabled by the above, the stagnation of working class income despite continued increase in productivity (and corporate profits), the total lack of social protection and benefits compared to other developed countries. People in the middle class and below have been screwed for 40 years and are angry. They should be angry at Republicans. But the Republican party has managed to deflect their anger towards immigrants, non-Christians, non-whites, liberals, LGBT, China, academia, intellectual "elites", scientists, journalists, and non-existent scarecrows like Antifa.