There’s some kind of base tribal instinct in the human animal that, while manifesting in very deep and complicated ways, pretty much comes down to “Do Onto Others Before They Do Onto You”.

I know I’m not the only person here who’s partway into Battle Cry of Freedom and it’s become abundantly clear to me that nothing has really changed; the country has been fighting the same cultural war since the onset of industrialization in the 1830s, and possibly earlier.

The politics are the same, the rhetoric is the same, the ideas are the same. The only difference is that one side is no longer allowed to own humans or say the N-word in public. I’ll add a caveat that, for that side, everybody who isn’t them is an N-word to some degree.

Women, the poor, the “Negro”, the Irish, the Chinese, the Jews: there’s always somebody to shit on. This supremacist wannabe-Plantation Owner knows that he’s a loser, and the only way he can feel better is to scapegoat and hate the Other.

The big difference now is that this mentality is no longer constrained to geography. It’s a battle of the mind. Assholes vs. Everybody Else. We’re starting to see cracks in the veneer, and pure Asshole is leaking through for everybody to see.

I’d love it if Hillary or Bernie stood up on a stage and called them out. Don’t parry - just sledgehammer that wall until the dam bursts and the right wing pukes itself up without any sugar-coating. It’s getting there.