What the hell has happened to our country?

Nothing new. It's basically the same group of people who were on the losing side of the Civil War, and who continued in their racism from then until now. They ebb and flow in and out of favor, never really going away, quietly passing along their prejudice and bigotry from one generation to the next.

Electing our first Black President brought them out and fired them up. Combining that with the rise of a mentally ill populist and a crop of long-serving politicians willing to seize on just about anything to hold on to power, and you have the situation we're in today.

I'm an optimist, in that I believe they'll fade away, back into the shadows, over the next few years. But I'm also a pessimist, in that I'm fairly sure they will rise up again some time in the future. Possibly not during my remaining lifetime, but almost certainly in the lifetime of my grandchildren.

--Peter