Great review and I’ll pick up the book. I shared this with my Social Media streams. I want to share the message that went with it with you:

In light of the short memory…or manufactured reality…of certain political billionaires recently, I thought it important to share something.
We’re seeing the rebirth — or at least a new growth spurt — of the KKK and Alt-Right (Neo Nazi) hate groups in the wake of the 2016 election. Obviously, the PEOTUS has not come out and backed these organization outright (he even distanced himself after some time and consideration…) but his actions and the overall world view touted by his campaign did little to dissuade any follower from latching on and using it as long as Trump rose in the polls.
The campaign ran on gilded and hazy memories of the past. False narratives and anecdotal stories that share broad swaths with racist explanations of the past. “Racism wasn’t an issue before THEY brought it up.” “I’m nice to colored people — it’s their fault they live in squalor and crime.” And assumptions of people that never spent any real time with people of another ethnicity, religion or even world view. “The all live in crime and squalor!” “They are the reasons that cities are nothing but burnt out buildings and rampant crime!” and my favorite “Everyone could get along if they just did it our way and stayed quiet.”

The article relates the creation of the KKK to a new phenomenon during Reconstruction — Boredom. A club of like minded people that adopted a “figurehead” and a seemingly leaderless organization and matched it to what they identified with in the movement.

Is Trump’s involvement boredom? Probably. He’s a near-figurehead at his company that is used to hiring people to tell him the best options and then picking one. He has very little time for study and outside details that don’t confirm with his world view. Ones formed while trying to enact housing discrimination with his father. Growing up in the shadow of gangster-ism and privilege few could understand. Gifted at getting a party going and being the Scotch-guarded lead for questionable ideas. His biggest supporters are not the destitute poor and underdogs but people that are obviously doing OK or even living well above the national and global average — but they feel a sting, a threat, and they don’t understand it.

When the hate groups saw this they saw something they identified with. They saw “he’s not politically correct” as “we can now publicly talk about the persecution of whites! a.k.a. White Genocide”. They saw “remember back in the old days” and thought “we can ‘take back’ the power we had” and used that to enthrall people that never had power or were told “the others” would take it away. They heard “Build a wall!” And they rallied the cries that all government misspending is on illegals. They heard “they are sending rapists…the worst people.” and turned that to “Mexicans are ruining our country! They’re lazy breeders that don’t want to integrate” instead of understanding history in America and looking at the contributions of their fellow Americans with Latino roots.

I believe very few people get to “end stage racism” easily. It’s a path walked down with what they might perceive as good intentions: First moral relativism, then partisan-ism, then false rationalization until they are so far away and so deeply entrenched from the human condition they make a home in the filth they’ve surrounded themselves with rather than take the long trip back.

I know this because it is what I grew up with. Not as a persecuted minority, but as a white kid in a lovely small town in the Southern Midwest who has heard all of the above, seen the spell it casts on otherwise good people and knows how hard it is to peel all that garbage you were raised with out of your skull.

If you’re tired of my political posts (if so, you probably have not read this far) then understand THIS is the source of my agitation. Seeing the blatant cover thrown over old fashion fear, hate and tribalism. Not focusing on an equal chance for all through hard work and a fair start, but a gathering war of “US” vs. “THEM” drawn up by both sides in an attempt to gain political power. Subverting humanity’s primal urge to group into tribes for survival to create power, profit and political favor. I hope you understand. I hope this helps. I’m not fighting for a hero or leader. I’m definitely not fighting for a party. I’m not fighting for profit. I’m fighting for my race — the human race. I’m fighting to leave the planet better than we were born into it.