The Dying of the White Male Light

The more precarious their political position, the greater their threat.

- Rebecca Traister

On December 14, protesters interrupted a Donald Trump rally, shouting about gun control and proclaiming that black lives matter. The large crowd of Trump supporters shouted back at them. MSNBC News reporter Benjy Sarlin described how, “as one man was dragged away, people in the crowd variously yelled, ‘Shoot him!,’ ‘Kick his ass’ … ‘Light the motherfucker on fire!’ ” One man yelled, “Sieg heil!”

It has been a violent, sad year, marked by mass shootings and police violence and acts of terror and a seemingly endless supply of vitriol and anxiety. But while that series of events may have felt like a random, scary blur as we lived through it, it is coming into stark and horrifying relief at year’s end thanks to the blaring optics of our presidential-election cycle.