We didn't underestimate Trump.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Bingo. Trump is just a symptom of

... I'm not sure exactly what. Maybe we were just being held together with the duct tape and baling wire of a shared belief in our "system" but then it all started falling apart when the system couldn't contain the anger of people who thought they weren't in control any more? Not that long ago a candidate like Trump would have been unthinkable; his own party would have tossed him out the back door into the alley. I think Sarah Palin was the first sign that really overt awfulness was acceptable in politics, at least to some people. She opened the door and all that festering hate came out and was validated. I don't how it can be fixed - most people still believe in political decency but enough don't, or are willing to overlook gross indecency if they think the'll get a tax break and the Mexicans and Muslims will get kicked out, that we might be looking at some kind of civil war. Maybe not a shooting war, but some kind of collapse of the US as we now know it.