During an interview with PBS' Charlie Rose, Jon Meecham discussed the "underlying reality" of hate that Charlottesville revealed:
"The fires of hate burn the brightest when there are moments of economic and social stress. Reconstruction was that kind of moment. The beginning of the institution of Jim Crow into the 1890s. ... You have these moments when some part of the white population, frankly, feels alienated and dispossessed. And the reality of 2017 is ... globalization and its discontents. The changing demography of the country. The changing idea that Information Age brains matter more than Manufacturing Age brawn. ... That's part of the reason Donald Trump is president ...
I think that you have these moments where the extremes — the hate, the people who are giving Nazi salutes after we have spent so much blood and treasure trying to liberate the world from the form of tyranny — ... it's an extreme manifestation of an underlying reality."
Unsupported embed type