Thanks for your detailed response. Just a few points I’d make:

• On the subject of Ta-Nehisi Coates and his version of history, all I’d really say is that it’s reductive. There was a diversity of opinions on the issue of slavery in the U.S. from its very outset, and those holding those divergent opinions kept compromising or butting heads until it all finally culminated in the Civil War. So America was built on slavery, but it was also built on bitter opposition to slavery. It was both of those things. Of course, as you say, most of the opinions on this issue on both sides were coming from white people. There is nothing special or unusual about this, since, of course, this was a majority white country, with black people being largely slaves at the nation’s inception. Again, slavery was a common practice in those days, including in Africa. America was, thus, not uniquely evil in upholding the practice.
• Thanks for your note about calling some of the views I’d expressed “simplistic,” though I didn’t take it personally anyway. As for how to label myself, I honestly have no idea. I’m not comfortable with “conservative” and not comfortable with “progressive,” so “populist” probably comes closest, but then, I also favor the aggressive propagation of high culture in schools and universities, and that could be called “elitist,” so I don’t know…. This is why I’ve never voted for anyone; my politics don’t map neatly within the framework offered by our political binaries.
• On the subject of feeling guilty or not feeling guilty about racism, etc., you write that you “would feel guilty witnessing the racism and blatant discrimination and not do anything to redress these injustices.” I might agree with that, but as I’ve already expressed, I don’t see much evidence of “racism and blatant discrimination” around today. Or rather, what I see is institutional racism and blatant discrimination being wielded openly and shamelessly against white people. What I also see is lots of black poverty, leading to all kinds of other problems. And I do care about that issue and have proposed various things that I think should be done about it. But, unfortunately, the focus on race and racism is, in my view, making the problem worse rather than better by creating and deepening fissures between the black and white poor and working classes, resulting in an cultural race war instead of a joining together to fight common problems.
• “I may be a writer’s dream, but I think it’s safe to call you a reader’s dream.” Thank-you. That’s very kind of you.
• You are correct that I am not against government intervention. One thing I’m definitely NOT is libertarian. I think libertarianism sounds great in theory (to some), but in practice, it results in handing over our country to the relentless profiteering of multi-national corporations who, if not reined in by government, will avail themselves of every opportunity to cut corners, put poison in our food, air and water, get us dependent on expensive drugs, addicted to mind-numbing video games and toxic social media and working long hours at the absolute minimum payscale they can get away with. At least government is theoretically accountable to people. Corporations aren’t. That’s why I’m totally okay with intervention in the market, though I also know that intervention poses its own dangers.
• Just to be clear about one thing you wrote in your response to the Lowry-McWhorter dialogue, the 1619 project is something that The New York Times just started a month or so ago, so it wasn’t a factor in Trump’s election. But the same basic viewpoints of people who created the 1619 project were already taking shape a decade or more ago, so those views were certainly out there by 2016.