Dylan Matthews has a wonderful piece up on Vox, Taking Trump voters' concerns seriously means listening to what they're actually saying, which points out that in order to heal the great divide in the United States we're going to have to admit what Trump's popularity is all about: a fading, racist white majority is struggling to maintain primacy.

For various reasons, our press and politicians shy away from tackling the inherent racism of this movement head-on. Apparently racism is so ugly, we don't want to accuse people of it even as they scream white power slogans and wave Nazi flags. People find it easier to say that White Power America has big economic problems, which isn't true, rather than look honestly at the hatred and bigotry.

Almost daily in America, police kill an innocent black man. Some portion of our population thinks this is "law and order." We've got white power assholes threatening post-election violence. A reality-tv-created egotistical monster is closer to being elected President of the United States than anyone should believe possible.

I get that we want to be nice to one another, but just waiting for education and time to solve this problem is perhaps not working fast enough. At some point we're going to need to point out that some beliefs, regardless how passionately held, are what they are. Someone holding on to racist beliefs who finds the mantle of 'Racist' too ugly to wear should reconsider their position, not couch it in a cute slogan. They aren't Tea Party Patriots clamoring for a birth certificate, they aren't the New Alt-Right, they are just racist.

Via Vox: