I'm not a prognosticator.

Mike OBrien

@wdlindsy thanks for sharing. Great article

Nicole Parsons

Racism, homophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, misogyny - all the forms of bigotry used by the moneyed to divide & weaken us.

All used to enrich themselves at others expense.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-backing-billionaires-enabling-white-supremacy-rcna174186

nytimes.com

(www.nytimes.com)

Experts cringe at billionaire’s claim that MLK would have opposed DEI efforts

Billionaire Bill Ackman said the “DEI movement” went against the tenets of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. DEI consultants and experts say the assertion is insulting.

NBC News (www.nbcnews.com)

‘A bully’: the billionaire who led calls for Claudine Gay’s Harvard exit

US hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posts 4,000-word screed decrying ‘racism against white people’ after Gay’s departure

the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)

For a Racism-Free 22nd Century, We Need a Billionaire-Free 21st - Inequality.org

The dead hand of grand fortunes past is still poisoning our present.

Inequality.org (inequality.org)

Rich Thanks to Racism: How the Ultra-Wealthy Profit from Racial Injustice | Publications | Stone Inequality Initiative

Watson Institute Stone Inequality Initiative website.

(watson.brown.edu)

Billionaires—Musk, Cuban, Ackman—Clash Over DEI. Here's How It Became A Target.

Mark Cuban and Elon Musk quarreled on social media this week over the intent of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives following the controversial resignation of Harvard University’s first Black president.

Forbes (www.forbes.com)

It's even being weaponized by foreign enemies.
https://www.axios.com/2020/06/10/russian-interference-2020-election-racial-injustice

Just a moment...

(www.axios.com)

Just a moment...

(journals.sagepub.com)

The Sleight Doctor

@wdlindsy Good article. A blue-voting American friend once told me, you can understand a lot more about the USA when you know that half of us are terrified of everything, including each other.

I understand better what he meant today than I did at the time.

William Lindsey :toad:

@ApostateEnglishman I agree. I think it's a good statement. Built right into American culture from its foundations is that strong Puritan strand that never wants to see anyone else happy or prosperous, if that someone else is not -- like us -- righteous and chosen by God. As Mencken said so incisively, Puritanism is "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” We love, some of us, to see the world in terms of chosen and deserving and damned and undeserving.

William Lindsey :toad:

@Npars01 Thank you for this valuable statement and the good links. Excellent.

William Lindsey :toad:

@MikeOB1 I agree! You're welcome.

William Lindsey :toad:

@mloxton From where I stand, unfortunately, it has gotten worse in many ways. Trump and the Republican party have let some real evil out of the garbage bags in which it was formerly contained, and more and more people feel very proud to be open racists, misogynists, and homophobes.

Matthew Loxton

@wdlindsy oh yah, THAT certainly has become worse. A lot of people who previously had social constraints on voicing or acting on their bigotry now feel like they have license to let it rip

William Lindsey :toad:

@mloxton And as that happens, there is, I'd argue, a strong rippling effect so that more and more people feel confident in being open bigots.

The Sleight Doctor

@wdlindsy What you say ties in with Hofstadter's "paranoid style", and how demagogues from Goldwater to Trump have mined fear and social anxiety to sway voters toward their agendas. The faithful refuse to accept society as it is, and so seek to smash the current order under the guise of conspiracy theories about looming threats ("libruls", hippies, Blacks and the "woke", Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, LGBTQ people...)

American conservatives see themselves as permanently under seige.

#Trumpism #MAGA

William Lindsey :toad:

@ApostateEnglishman You're very right. And I'd maintain that a strong root of all of this is the Puritanism built into American culture at a formative level.