good, scary read TPM Josh Marshall "The American Right Gets Tired of Democracy"

[marylandblue]

1. Most liberal pundits don't get it, but Marshall does.

At bottom, a conservative and a liberal are two different types of people. A conservative is someone who needs borders. A liberal needs open spaces.

Conservatives want to build concentric rings of walls around their family, their community, their churches, their belief systems and ultimately, their country. They find safety behind these walls, in particular they find safety from the new and unfamiliar.

Liberals hate walls. They want to enjoy the great diversity of life and do not fear it. They want freedom to roam and to be themselves. They embrace change, and when they pace of change speeds up, they are exilerated.

As our society changes, the urge of conservatives to retreat behind the walls and build them higher increases. This is what we are seeing today. The problem is not that they hate immigrants per se, it's that the rapid social and economic changes are scaring them to death. Trump's border wall is physically useless but it's deeply symbolic, which is why it is such a big deal.

This is a difficult problem to deal with. I think we need to slow the pace of some changes to keep conservatives from flipping out. Maybe Marshall has a better solution.