1/ Large groups of desperate people are a national security risk, whether here or in other corners of the world. They form a petri dish out of which mass societal dysfunction is almost inevitable. This led to the emergence of Hitler in Germany after WW I among other examples.

2/ Starting with Reaganomics in 1980 & continuing for 40 yrs, the majority of Americans were squeezed into the painful confines of a system where economic & social opportunity consistently & increasingly dried up for them so that a tiny few Americans could grow obscenely wealthy

3/For 40 yrs the trend continued. Repubs bought totally into corporate domination of our govt & society, leaving vast millions to suffer; Dems tried to eliminate pain on the periphery but they too refused to challenge underlying corporate forces that made the suffering inevitable

4/ By 2016 a critical mass of Americans realized the economy was rigged against them & cried out in legitimate rage. Only 2 presidential candidates named their pain, however: the authoritarian populist Donald Trump and the progressive populist Bernie Sanders.

5/ But now of course, all that rage has turned into a mass psychosis led by a dictatorial leader the likes of which is to be expected by anyone with even a basic awareness of how groups operate. Political officialdom has been arrogantly blind to a fire set right under their noses