I come from a long line of racists. I mean, let’s be honest white folks, we all do.

But all I can think right now is of my dad (RIP Kirk), who called me in tears on November 4, 2008 because he had cast his first vote for a Democrat in a presidential election.

I’m from Wyoming. One of the reddest states. You’re either a Republican there or you might as well be a Commie.

My dad called me that night in tears because he was proud of his vote and, I think, frightened of his vote. He said his dad would be rolling in his grave that his son had voted for a Black president. “What was this country coming to? A better place. A better place,” he kept repeating.

My dad said he couldn’t vote for McCain. He just couldn’t. He couldn’t support McCain if the guy would pick Palin as his running mate. To acquiesce to the kind of people who support Palin, he said, was to surrender everything that had made the Republican Party great; and even more, everything that had made this very flawed country believe in progress. “She doesn’t believe in dinosaurs, for fuck’s sake,” he said.

It wasn’t a vote for Obama. Let’s be clear. My dad was one helluva polite white supremacist, I’ll give him that much.

And that’s the Republican Party I knew as a kid in Wyoming, I suppose. One that believed in free markets and war and whiteness but also dinosaurs.

I don’t recognize much about the GOP today. Oh I do recognize the racism, for sure. I recognize the sexism. But there’s something about Trump, about his smug selfishness, sure, but about his willful dismissal of facts and truths – “We hold these truths to be self-evident” – that would have driven my dad and my dad’s dad to another party at this stage. I’m sure of it. I’m not sure how anyone, quite frankly, could have watched Trump in tonight’s debate and then pronounced “that’s my guy.” My dad and my grandpa – small businessmen, both of them – paid taxes, not because they were “dumb” as Trump suggested tonight, but because that’s what you do as a responsible citizen.

I want to write more about all of thisthis. About this embrace of factlessness and fantasy. About selfishness in lieu of sacrifice. But mostly I want to be able to understand how so many people I grew up with and love can support someone like Trump – someone who I think (and I think my dad would think too) is really poised to unravel everything everything that “we” – we white folks, we the people, what have you – have worked toward.

Why, it’s almost as though once “we” are confronted with extending rights and dignity to everyone – “all men are created equal” – that white folks would rather burn it to the ground than let people of color have access to freedom and justice and happiness.