Trump Didn’t Create This Mess. He Amplified It, Tho. Should We Amplify Him?

A major question of the next 12 months, I would guess.

Before we get too deep into this mess, let’s just admit the logical up front: there were assholes stoking anger long before Trump. There were racists and guys referring to countries as “shit-holes” long before The Donald. There were executive-level country club guys who amassed a solid amount of material success by being bullies long before The Cheeto emerged. None of this is really new.

What did happen, though, was you had a nice intersection of things occur from maybe 2002 onward:

• Jobs increasingly became more about pressing buttons and computers doing work, even blue-collar and service jobs.
• We stopped training people for trades.
• We also cut a lot of funding for things like “debate” and “the humanities,” instead focusing on test scores.
• Obama won, which backed up the dam of racism.
• Trump, who was a C-Tier celebrity in 2009 or so, used the “birther” argument to get himself back on the news.
• Automation gutted the Upper Midwest.
• The Democrats had a horribly-flawed candidate of their own in 2016.