Trump uses their hate to pump them up. Trump, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh are the problem.

Trump is a big problem. He has the power to either settle down hate groups or to increase their reason for being. If everyone thought that these hate groups were bad, they would be too chicken to show theirs faces and they would try to blend in.

There have akways been plenty of racist, sexist, homophobic, gun-toting jerks who were open about their backward beliefs. There were also people who would alter their behaviour in public when it was to their advantage, projecting some semblance of PCness. But no longer. Trump us their champion! The shitheads have proudly come out of the closet!

I think the problem is that so much internet "debate" has one side trying to prove that the other side are terrible people, rather than try to reason together to come to consensus. It's like a game where the prize is that I get to villify you and ride a high of moral superiority. After a while the response becomes "yeah whatever." But people are addicted to that high, so they'd rather keep playing that game even though the ultimate outcome will be the flourishing of unabashed bigotry.

This probably deserves its own OP. This is something that a lot of 'stupid smart' (book smart) people do not understand.

Some of this resentment has a basis in reality. Jobs shipped overseas to maximize corporate profits took away many people's means of making a comfortable living not to mention their self-respect. It's hard to compare what your parents had and what you had and see nothing good in the future.

It's easy to see illegal aliens, as people who are taking jobs people like you used to do and come to hate them.

Some of it is rooted in white, male privilege and the expectation of what that privilege should entail. Let's face it, the economic rise of women, blacks and Hispanics has come in part at the expense of some less well prepared white men. This is incredibly unfair to these men, who see themselves as naturally superior and yes, to the women who love and support them.

Some of it's cultural.

Many of these people have been listening to conservative talk radio for years. They are convinced that the media is hopelessly liberal and that truth can only be found from a few sources. They are immune to shaming--immune even to facts.