Yesterday, Mrs. Center Left noted that we are in midst of major social change and that may be a big part of why our society and politics are so polarized. In a similar vein, Josh Marshall has a very long column on change in our society, specifically the further decline of “white America”  His thoughts on this change and and how Trump has seized the moment and played to the minority of our society that feels that “white America is dying or being taken away.”  As a white male, Josh writes many of my own thoughts in wake of the Dallas police shooting.  Like me, Josh does not see the country falling apart like 1968.  The police were there to protect the protesters.  The protest leaders condemned the violence agains the police.  His entire piece is worth reading.  Here’s a link: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/not-1968-but

And I will quote extensively.  First he compares the present to 1968, referencing an equally good column by Jonathan Chait:

By so many measures – civil disorder, political breakdown, assassinations, death tolls, the US Army operating in major American cities – there is truly no comparing that era in our country’s history with today. As Jon Chait argues here, there is an underlying societal unity, prosperity and consensus which the headlines, political and cultural polarization and atrocities obscure. And yet, I don’t think we can quite,entirely close the book on the analogy.

Josh then goes on to discuss white identity and the pace of cultural change.  His thoughts on the pace are in line  with the very wise Mrs. Center Left:

Like I am, Chait is a white man in his 40s who has been given much of the best of what our society has to offer. He also does not politically identify with his whiteness. This is no knock on Chait, who is a friend. All of these apply entirely to me as well. Indeed, when I see these things, part of me thinks, how can everything be coming apart when there’s so much that is going so well?

The improvement and all that is good is all right there to see. I see it. And yet revolutions mostly tend to occur not when things are dire but when they’re improving. Just not fast enough. The phenomenon of revolutions or protest when change is not keeping pace with rising expectations is a well-known one in sociology and political science.

Then Josh turns to the loss of white privilege, why many of us are happy to embrace that, while others fight it by turning to Trump:

 At a traffic stop, I’m white, no matter what my politics, empathy, awareness of this reality or that. I’m white, period. My kids are white too. And the metaphoric traffic stop plays out in numerous other social situations. That’s a layer of protection I carry around me no matter what. It inevitably shapes what I see when I watch these horrific videos – the mix of outrage or anger or fear. I feel a lot of outrage and a lot of anger but I don’t feel much fear because, frankly, I’m pretty sure nothing like that is going to happen to me. All of which is a protracted way of saying I don’t think I can quite know what year it is for my black brothers and sisters watching those videos.

Why is Donald Trump the presidential nominee of a major political party? As that famous Simpson’s line put it about Fox News, Not Racist but #1 Among Racists! The KKK and “white nationalists” say they feel like the tide is turning in their direction for the first time in decades. Perhaps in spite of himself, but even so Trump is re-normalizing the old anti-semitism that had seemed entirely written out of acceptable public life in America. Not ‘anti-Semitism’ as an attack phrase against people who don’t support Israel enough. But real anti-Semitism with global Jewish cabals, hook-nosed cartoons, jokes about ovens and all the rest.

None of this is normal. It requires an explanation.

There are numerous roots of Trumpism, some deep-seated, others entirely contingent. They include economic grievances which are legitimate and real. Yet Trump might plausibly, if not necessarily, be described as a madman. The fact that the general election version of his campaign (which has to the surprise of many been even more outrageous and transgressive than the primary version) struggles to getbelow 40% in the polls is to a degree a measure of the degree of political polarization in the country – fertile and disquieting ground for another pots. But the overriding drive of Trumpism is that a substantial minority of our fellow citizens believes their country, white America, is dying or being taken away from them. This is rooted in the rising demands of African-Americans, tens of millions of new Americans and now their children from Latin America and other parts of the world, and newcomers with a religion that to many signifies alienness, violence and threat.

And here’s what many Trump voters feel and see:

But we can’t understand this phenomenon unless we understand that from a certain perspective what they fear or are angry about is true. The America in which whites made up the vast majority of citizens and held a monopoly on political power not simply because of racism but, in most parts of the country, by the fact of numerical majorities is unambiguously coming to an end. You see it in everything from birtherism, to opiate death rates to a constant theme of our politics. Is this a threat or a death? I’m entirely untroubled by this fact. Indeed, I welcome it, as do millions and millions of Americans. But there are millions of Americans who do not. You can’t be an observer of contemporary American politics and not see that very clearly.

Trump has trapped into those fearing the loss of “white America” with explicit language rather than the code used by his Republican rivals.  While it worked in the primary process, it will not work, and is not working in the general election.  But Trump’s defeat is not going to end this divisiveness.  I’m hopeful that relatively soon from a historical perspective, (a decade or two?), American society will evolve to a point where Trump like candidates can only attract a tiny fringe element of the electorate.  May it be even sooner than that.

This has been a confusing post to write with so much quoting of Josh.  Bottom line, Trump will be defeated. But I fear the defeat of Trumpism and its ugliness within American society will take longer, likely longer than the Presidency of Hillary Clinton.