Most of these posts have been about the attempt to shut down dissent on same-sex marriage etc. Here's something on another question which is probably just as important: at The Federalist, "How Anti-White Rhetoric Is Fueling White Nationalism". As I've been saying for a long time, "sow the wind, reap the whirlwind"–and as anyone with the least grasp of human nature ought to have seen would happen. As the Federalist writer says, the use of "white" as a pejorative is becoming both more common and less light-hearted. Of course there's no serious danger now, but to be a member of a politically and/or economically dominant minority is very dangerous if the mob's blood-lust gets going.
I see no reason to think that either Donald Trump or the majority of his supporters are deeply and seriously racist. But it can't be denied that he has attracted racists and doesn't seem terribly concerned about it. That also seems in part associated with the effect described in the article cited above. Last March, writing at USA Today, Glenn Reynolds opined that the hateful response of progressives (which includes of course most of the media) to the Tea Party helped to fuel the Trump phenomenon. Something to that, I think.
Economic matters really ought to be considered in any discussion of long-range social trends. I don't often talk about them because I really don't know what to say. There is no identifiable conscious movement with explicitly bad intentions there, as with these other matters. There seems to be evidence that we are heading toward a situation like what we've always decried in Latin American countries: a wealthy oligarchy, a small middle-class, and a vast number of poor. But there are so many forces at work that I don't feel competent to say much on the subject.
Just to pick one factor: I see a lot of people comparing the situation of working people in the present to that of the 1950s. Yes, it's true (well, I think it is) that a man could support a wife and family on a single blue-collar wage then. But goodness–think of all the vast social differences between then and now.
Just to pick one sub-factor in this factor: it's now the norm that both fathers and mothers hold down outside jobs. And I think the root of that development is the deliberate choice made by women to enter the work force. Feminism, simple desire for more material goods…there were a lot of factors at work there. Once that trend got underway–again, so it seems to me–I'm no economist–it became a vicious cycle, with both prices and wages reflecting the growth of the two-income family. And now we're at a point where that second income is no longer optional unless a family is willing not just to scrimp but to suffer financially. And then you add to that the cultural deterioration which makes lower-income neighborhoods, and the schools to which those living there must send their children, not just poor but physically dangerous.
In passing, it annoys me a bit–I want to say it amuses me, but more often it annoys–to hear progressives talk about the 1950s as a wonderful time for middle-class families. Since the late '60s we've been hearing how horrible it was, and still, in most contexts, "1950s-style" is generally a term of scorn. I remember fervent denunciations of factory jobs and an insistence that they were incompatible with a fully human society. A good lesson in "be careful what you wish for," I guess.
Light On Dark Water 
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