“At one point a reviewer said that things had changed so much that I had to accept that racism, homophobia were no longer a thing. This was before the haters revealed themselves in recent years, crawled out from under their slimy rocks. I knew they were there. Anyone paying attention did. Now, it’s obvious.”

“And then new politics raised its ugly head, even after we had finally seemed to break the glass ceiling with a Black president. The folks who resented this were given permission by right-wing politicians who had the logic of the brain dead, made it okay to hate again; hate people for sexual orientation and race, religion, and so on.”

https://crimereads.com/joe-r-lansdale-remembers-the-genesis-of-hap-and-leonard-and-pays-tribute-to-michael-k-williams/

And look where it’s all got us. It was very disillusioning to be forced to realize that, as he says, haters were just hidden under their slimy rocks, and the orange disgrace gave them permission to crawl out and turn this country into a quagmire of hatred and vitriol. For shame. It is very depressing to realize just who so many of my countrymen really are. I was living in a fantasy world, where we were better than that.