There has been an aggregating weakening of political and social structures that can be mapped onto the lives of the Boomer Generation. Post-war return to normal was seen by the new generation as liberation or threat depending whether folks were liberal or conservative. Freeing the individual from structured, familiar, Depression and Wartime routine was either welcome or not.
So both camps have worked angles since. It's what we see now, and the history writes itself when you look at the lives of the Greatest Generation and go forward from there.
What we saw during Obama was the conviction of conservatives that all the built up fear had finally been realized. All guns would be confiscated, every child aborted, every familiar townscape and neighborhood and social convention would be forbidden and forcibly exchanged for a daily life where nothing is recognizable anymore.
And only due to the valiant efforts of the GOP Congress and heroes on FOX and Brietbart and InfoWars was the grand global liberal plot stopped, with Hannity outing Obama's plan to declare martial law and cancel the Constitution in October 2016.
Now, it's simple. Trump is the last bastion who literally pulled the nation out of a pit of sodomy and satanism and cultural swill that the well-known liberal conspiracy had thrust us into.
The liberal Boomer narrative found it's nadir in the Clintons. Bill the grab-ass playah with a wink and a doobie, sincerely sincere about rolling in the hedonism behind the Public Caring about issues that make panties wet. Hillary the machine-tooled Power Woman who marched and was Involved when young and learned all the levers to press to Get Things Done, sincerely insincere operating her artfully crafted Rube Goldberg infrastructure to move demographics with the right words and the right tone.
Whichever 'side' is to blame, we are here now.
Current policy we all serve is based on the most well tuned and most far fetched and most "all in or all out" fever nightmares of conservatism. We all know friends who know for a fact that They are itching to leave We The People gunless and helpless, forcing our daughters legs apart and ripping babies out of their bodies. Lots of people accept that as fact, and therefore understandably justify an equally extreme response to save what they can of the nation they know.
I and many others fear an authoritarian nationalism that echoes what has happened throughout history. I worry that we are already beyond the cliff's edge and teetering towards totalitarianism. I see 'temporary' banning of Muslims and now 'temporary' ending of all immigration as a permanent end to what I believe makes the America I know and love. I accept that as fact, and therefore understandably justify an equally extreme response to save what I can of the nation I know.
Our question is where we choose to go from here. Do we only have the choice of fully realizing half of our fears so the other half of us can feel safe, or do we have another path back from the edge?