flanked at a horseshoe rangment of tables by the vice presidents of major japanese corporations. tensions were particularly high with japan s nuclear-armed neighbor north korea so i expected their questions to be about that. instead they asked what had happened that summer in charlottesville, virginia. who were these people marching through the streets? why had trump said there were good people on both sides? what they were really asking, i sensed, was a more fundamental question. is that you? is that america? i offered the usual explanations for the 2016 election, the combination of the criticisms of the clinton campaign, the news media, the bizarre twists that came together to elevate trump. the fact that there had been no massive shift in public opinion to the right but rather a radicalization on the right. i watched them listen skeptically. these men lived in cold reality. numbers on the balance sheet. they couldn t indulge an america that was experimenting with insanity. their ent