Without losing any of the outrage that the present situation demands — highlighted by the sheer sadistic brutality of the Trump regime’s crimes against humanity perpetrated on refugee families — it’s also necessary to analyze it carefully. Donald Trump did not arise from a vacuum. Riding retrograde trends that have been developing for decades, he’s emerged in his grotesque way as a kind of “transformational” president, promoting a set of programs that the right and far-right in U.S. politics have long envisioned.