For the last six years or so, most Americans — especially white Americans — were in denial about the monster rampaging across the country. Like privileged children, they believed that if their eyes were closed, the monster couldn't harm them. The real world does not work that way.
Those slumbering Americans are not entirely responsible for their bad decisions. In one ear they had the hope-peddlers and centrist pundits whispering, like faeries or gods in some pre-Raphaelite painting, that everything would be fine and they should just keep sleeping. In the other ear were Donald Trump, the Republican fascists and their allies, assuring them that everything would be fine and good because the Trump movement was fighting for "real Americans" like them.
