Since last Tuesday, a wave of ugly racist and xenophobic incidents has rippled across the nation (300, by one estimate); suddenly more people enjoy painting the swastika on a wall or singing racial taunts at black and Mexican children. All that has been sponsored by Donald Trump himself, who spat bigotry, misogyny, and Islamophobia throughout the campaign without apparent self-control or regret.
Trump, of course, isn't the fountainhead of American hate, only someone who's been able to take advantage of social undercurrents. The ugliness brought out by this election is firmly rooted in American insecurities: economic, yes, but also panic at foreign threats and an inability to come to terms with the racism at the center of our identity. And all of this has been abetted by the churchâ??at least the parts of it that have allowed themselves to be subsumed into a white nationalist identity.
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