You'd do yourself a favor to listen to the thoughts of historian Heather Cox Richardson. I catch her every couple of weeks, and this particular one was shared today by a friend (it's a few days old) and I sat through the hour amazed at what she knows but also at how clearly she tells the story of history.

The large reason lots of the social programs of today are under fire is because of the rich slave owners in the first 150 years of the country, trying to either hold onto their slaves and prosperous system of government, or keep freed slaves and other poor people from voting in a way that would mean they get services and help from the government (that the rich southern landowners would be taxed for).

Trump is, in her telling, a symptom of the problem.