A reader writes:
It's really much less complicated, and the answer is tucked neatly in the phrase, "I want my country back." What that means is, the country that recognizes me and people like me as the cultural core of the nation, deserving of disproportionate influence and income. Race is the dominant theme -- but running through the same current are appeals to religion and cultural values, including education, or lack of it. While it might seem radical, even crazy, that a certain segment of the population strongly devalues education and educated people, it's part of the American experience. That's why many hyper well-educated elected officials, including presidents, try to pretend that they are "just folks."
Another writes:
That psychological interpretation was fantastic.
To take it one step further and incorporate some innate racist tendencies that many middle class whites may not even be aware of in themselves: for the United States to be called on the carpet, chastened for our collective excesses and asked to come to our senses by a black man now that decades of Great White Fathers and their laissez-faire spending and social awareness have failed us all well, of course puny minds are blown.