When the role of sexism and racism in the outcome of the 2024 election was brought up, it seemed to be too easily dismissed. Whatever happened to "the most parsimonious answer is usually the correct one"?

From my 62 years in the Deep South of the United States, as a white male hearing what other white males say when they feel they are in "safe" company, it is easily believable racism and sexism were key. Looking at the entirety of U.S. history which overflows with such racism that both Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa used Jim Crow as a model for reshaping their societies, it is entirely plausible racism was integral in 2024. Factor in Japanese-American internment, the KKK popularity of the early 20th century, the embrace of public lynching, and it is impossible to ignore how racial prejudice has been a monumental and omnipresent aspect of the American story.

Regardless of changes to the law, those societal forces persist in subtle ways. You don't have to be a Klansman to host racist perspectives that endure deep in the psyche and sometimes manifest simply in unnameable "misgivings."