I agree with your assessment that plummeting social capital for whites is driving much of the current political dialogue, but I believe that there’s a deeper underlying reason beyond racial antagonism: the persistent myth that economics is a zero sum game.

A common theme of the Trump and Sanders campaigns is that others are to blame for their supporters’ (i.e. white folks) diminished lot in life. The implication of their blame game is that an individual share of wealth can only be increased by taking resources from somebody else. Trump promises to increase the fortunes of his supporters by limiting non-white access to economic opportunities, while Sanders offers, in the spirit of Robin Hood, to rob the rich to give to the po- …er, white middle-class. What both men fail to recognize is that managing an economy isn’t about designating winners and losers, but finding optimal solutions that best utilize our natural and human resources to grow prosperity for a maximum number of participants.

Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but I feel like the antidote to all this white rancor is simply to get the Clintons back in the White House. The best thing for America right now is a technocratic leader who eschews ideology in favor of a pragmatic approach to solving problems based on quantifiable evidence. Just as during the 90’s when intellectualism reigned, the President and First Spouse (with roles reversed this time) will set a cultural tone in which fact-based reasoning supercedes ignorant opinion.