Thanks for your reply, Colby. I relate to you, and your family in Wyoming. I grew up in rural Missouri and had zero black friends before going to college. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t benefit from white privilege. You talked about homesteaders, but it should be pointed out that it was only white people who got free land, and later, after World War II, it was white people again who got free college educations and subsidized loans to buy houses in the suburbs. If you’re white in America, chances are you grew up in a family that had inherited wealth not merely by dint of your ancestors’ efforts, but also thanks to government policies that promoted education and home ownership. Reparations isn’t just about making up for slavery, but for everything else after too. (And no, the lives of Union soldiers don’t expunge that debt, since as Lincoln himself said, they were fighting the war to save the Union, whether that involved abolishing slavery or not).

I grew up a conservative Catholic. I understand the confusion around changing cultural norms wrt sex and gender, and the anger at being called bigoted for not agreeing with everything that Hollywood or other cultural influencers say. But I also think that personal responsibility means being responsible for your own beliefs. Maybe leftists go too far in the direction of self-flagellation, but in the right I don’t see any self-examination at all.

Re: Hillary, I think she was referring to a very small group of proud racists, who absolutely did support Donald Trump. And she won for the same reason Biden beat Bernie four years later: she trounced Bernie with black voters, who tend to prefer more moderate candidates who appear to have a better chance of winning. I voted for Bernie in the 2016 primary and even donated $ 100 to his campaign, but I don’t think anything was stolen from him.