44% of the country approves of the President right now. After everything we've seen. Let us be clear: no matter what happens on Nov 3, Trump is not some strange aberration. Trump represents the ugly cruelty that built the United States.

Such cruelty, such an utter lack of empathy is required to put kids in cages, run pipelines across sacred lands to Native peoples, or to justify police violence against black people. And to brag about it at rallies!

It seems unimaginable to many of us who were raised in an education system that offered us not history, but propaganda. But, Trump, and his 44% have always been there.

They said it was our "manifest destiny" to own a continent, and were willing to commit genocide to get it. They were willing to define a human person as 3/5ths of a person to preserve their right to own slaves. They fought tooth and nail against the notion that women could vote.

So, for the many of us (especially white) people who are not in that 44%: we have to evaluate how we have participated in the systems and ambitions of that 44% because it made our lives easier.

Our school zones, our 401Ks, our same day Prime shipping. None of these things exist without cruelty and exploitation. The question is not "what do we do about Trump." The question is what are we going to do about the 300 years that lead to Trump.