General Discussion

That's a big part of it but they don't look at it that way, except the rich whose greed exceeds their humanity. They understand that to maintain and expand their wealth and power requires the divide and conquer strategy of manipulating through fear and hate, pitting the common folk against each other.

Tens of millions of common folk are religious cultural conservates whose upbringing sees gender diversity as repugnant, immoral, and a threat to their way of life. The wealthy (noted in the paragraph above) have been manipulating those fears with decades of media propaganda from talk radio, Fox News, and more recently internet algorithms.

One of my high school friends moved to northeast Arkansas about 5 years ago. Through personal experience she tells me her neighbors are good people. Nice, friendly, and though mostly poor, they will go out of their way to help neighbors in need. Yet they are staunch Republican Trump voters, programmed to believe Democrats are devils.

Perhaps the most obsene aspect of fascism in America today is how the religion of Jesus Christ has been co-opted by money changers in the temple who are the antithesis of everything Christ stood for.