I have struggled to understand the election of President Trump and the three years of continued support given to him by the Republican Party. It seems unbelievable that so many people perceive him as a sort of savior. But they do. He continues to be supported and may well win another term.

What makes him attractive to vote for? After three years, one obvious conclusion is that his supporters don't care about his clownishness, his ignorance, his narcissism or corruption. What is less obvious is that they are responding to a deeper almost unconscious appeal that he has to their racial and historical identity.

Rep. Jay Lawrence's recent view of the dangers posed by "black and brown communities" is a good example of the threat that some people feel. After over 300 years of supremacy on this continent, the role of white people as the masters, bankers, leaders, farmers and workers is no longer secure. Our universities, industries and culture are becoming more and more racially diverse. Even learning and culture are being internationalized. Universities worldwide are spreading knowledge and competing for new technologies and understanding. The post war feeling of American supremacy and uniqueness is being challenged and white people, particularly white males are unnerved by the thought they are no longer the dominant group.

Those who voted for Trump see in his swagger and his appeal to nationalism, a pathway back to greatness. America drove the world economy and sourced many of the technological revolutions in the 20th century. American business practices and investment models were the ones, which brought about higher standards of living for millions. Now other countries and other races have copied the American model and are exercising their own economic independence. Many in the US see this as a threat. The Germans and Japanese make betters cars. Chinese and South Korean factories pour out the well-manufactured products, which fill American homes, and poorer nations sew our clothes together. Though we welcome it, it makes us uncomfortable. We seem to have exported our economy.

Even at home we feel uneasy. Immigrants, legal or otherwise, clean our houses, keep our restaurants running, gardens trimmed, gather crops and do the jobs Americans don't want to do. We seem reluctant to include them all as part of "our" American experiment. We are silent about the DACA kids. Our own wealth creation nevertheless rests on industrial farming, creating value added technology, on the returns from the world wide investments of our multinationals as well as intellectual property rights. Unfortunately labor worldwide is cheap and those Americans who only have their labor to sell in the marketplace feel more and more unhappy. As a changing economic and intellectual powerhouse, there is a nervousness creeping into the normally confident American psyche.

The power of white people who created America feels as if it is diminishing. Faced now with worldwide competition, the future looks less secure. Cheaper foreign manufacturing and industrial farming methods have left fewer prospects for poorly educated children stuck in rural hinterlands. Voting for Trump in red states, however, was supposed to put all that right. When his supporters watched him on TV or followed his tweets, he made the American dream a reality. Isn't he is famous, on TV, owns hotels, has a personal plane? By supporting him they can touch that and be part of the dream. What Trump did for himself with the help of $40 million from his father, they believe they can do somehow for themselves. The disappointment will eventually be a difficult letdown.

Naturally there are already cracks in the political edifice. "Keep America Great," sounds optimistic as a slogan but has a hollow rhetorical ring. A lot of people never found the "great" in the first place. Stockholders, locked into the new world economic model, are doing fine. Profits are soaring but for many further down the economic ladder a deep sense of anxiety remains. The American dream has got stuck. The optimism of Trump supporters, when he was elected, was part of a feeling that somehow the country could be put right. If it doesn't turn out great, then someone must be to blame - Congress, or Democrats or people who look different. When it comes to blame, Trump just points his supporters in the direction of immigrants, dark skinned people who bring disease and crime or rich socialists or fake news or the press, "the enemy of the people." He is never short of excuses and his blustering confidence has always been his success. He now assures his supporters that building The Wall will solve all the problems. The Wall will make Americans feel protected. That it doesn't actually work really doesn't matter.

Another major problem we have is that the epidemic of deaths from opioid and alcohol abuse coupled with our drug use and the new desire to legalize marijuana reflect something of the deep seated unhappiness of many in our society and the need to escape from reality. The American Dream for some seems to have become the Impossible Dream no matter how hard they work. Some poorly educated young men are so frustrated with themselves and society. They become young kamikazes, empowered by assault rifles and are willing to die in a hail of police bullets as part of their frustration. Just as worrisome is the willingness of the sick in Red States to vote for Republicans who reject the Medicaid, which might have kept them alive. They are all giving their lives to try to protect their vision of white success. Trump is their testimony that the dream is possible. Cruel reality teaches these men that the choices are narrow. All they can do is give or take their lives for the belief that American greatness will be somehow restored by their sacrifice.

If we are to remain a healthy and vibrant society, ready to face the future with confidence, we need a better dream, one that the whole world can participate in. More and more consumption is not the answer. Many of the problems we face are from the effects of the industrialization. It's damaging the ecosystem on which we depend. The more we abuse it, the less our chances of ensuring a sustainable future for all our children. To secure that future we have to act not as a nation state pursuing its own interests but as one global community. Co-operation and understanding are in all our best interests. We already understand some of the problems and the solutions. We're actually nearly all in touch with each other. 3.8 billion, nearly half the population of the world, have a Smartphone. It shouldn't be too difficult to get the message out there to the other 50%. Instead of "A Shining City on a Hill" we need the dream of a "Beautiful Blue Sustainable Planet."

We know now that burning more and more fossil fuels are damaging us and have taken a few remedial steps in the right direction. The situation is not without hope. Building self sustaining communities, promoting world wide, environmentally safe agricultural methods, insisting on more stringent standards for water and air purity, protecting vital water supplies, ensuring that population increases are balanced by available resources and that the biological richness of the planet, which sustains us all, is not undermined, are all possible. We have the knowledge and the technology. We have the UN and all its international bodies and expertise. We now need the political and individual will. Each of us needs to make the planet a better place. This is not unreasonable. Walk more, consume less, be part of local environmental organizations, plant trees, be conscious of your carbon footprint, invest in the future. This is reasonable and possible. It is unreasonable for us all to go on and on destroying our planet.

Change will become inevitable. What sort of change is up to us. Having worthwhile aims and objectives is central to a vision of the future. Old hatreds and divisions and ways of living and working have to be shelved. In the end whatever the color of skin, whatever our nationality, language, history or culture and wherever we live on this beautiful planet, we are all one human family. Our ingenuity and tool making abilities have got us this far and we either work towards the planet's survival or we go down like the dinosaurs bickering and fighting each other in a toxic fog. Change the American dream and we can change the future.