Out-and-out racism and a longing to return to the days of white supremacy were high on the list of motivations of the pro-Trump mob that ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. They resent and mourn their loss of centrality and what they perceive as their growing invisibility.
We seek to help us gain further insight into the lethal force that attacked Congress a week ago and is poised to strike again.
Is the frustration among non-college white men at not being able to compete with those higher up on the socioeconomic ladder because of educational disadvantage? And what encourages desperate behavior and a willingness to believe a pack of lies?
Trump supporters want to return to a past when white men saw themselves as the core of America and minorities and women “knew their place.” They believe they are on the true defenders of democracy.
They fear a loss of attention. A loss of validation. These are people who have always had racial privilege but have never had much else. Trump listened to them and spoke their language when few other politicians did.
It is very difficult for individuals and groups to come to terms with losing status and power, they respond to those threats with stress, anxiety, anger, and sometimes even violence.
U.S. Citizens who aren’t competing well, whose marital prospects have dimmed, and who are outraged, are those most likely to be in on the attack.
Resentment toward successful white elites is in play here, as evidenced by the attack on Congress, an overwhelmingly white seat of power.
When the jobs went away, families fell apart. There was no narrative other than the classic American dream that everyone who works hard can get ahead, and the implicit correlate was that those who fall behind and are on welfare are losers, lazy, and often minorities.
There is a belief that one’s decline in social and economic status is the result of unfair, if not corrupt, decisions by others, especially by so-called elites. These people who did these things appear to be motivated by strong moral conviction.
In addition, there is the decline in odds that those with very low levels of education marry up.
Now In this new world, promises of broad-based economic security were replaced by a job market where you can have dignity, but it must be earned through entrepreneurial success or the meritocratic attainment of professional status.
There is a idea that White (Christian) Americans are losing dominance, be it political, material, and/or cultural.
And, a more racially, ethnically, religiously diverse US that is also a democracy requires White Americans to acquiesce to the interests and concerns of racial/ethnic and religious minorities.
Racism is the key construct here in understanding why this sort of violence is possible. Whites in the last 60 years have seen minorities gain more political power, economic and educational opportunity.
All the revolutions — civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights — have been key to the emergence of the contemporary right wing:
As the voices of women, people of color, and other traditionally marginalized communities grow louder the frame of reference from which we tell the story of American is expanding.
People of color in political office, women controlling their fertility, L.G.B.T.Q. people getting married, White people want power, holding their “rightful position” over women, nonwhites, perhaps non-Christians (in the U.S.), and of course, in their view, sexual deviants such as gay people.
The decline of male status in the family is more sharply articulated than in Europe, hastened in the U.S. by economic inequality and religiosity (leading to pockets of greater male resistance to the redefinition of gender roles).
Many lines of conflict mutually reinforce each other rather than crosscut: Less educated whites tend to be more Evangelical and more racist, and they live in geographical spaces with less economic momentum.
We would not have Trump as president if the Democrats had remained the party of the working class. The decline of labor unions proceeded at the same rate when Democrats were president as when Republicans were president; the same is, I believe, true of loss of manufacturing jobs as plants moved overseas.
Trump speaks in a language that ordinary people can understand. He makes fun of the elites.
He appoints judges and justices who are true conservatives. Trump supporters who rioted in D.C. share are the beliefs that Trump is their hero, regardless of his flaws, and that defeating Democrats is a holy war to be waged by any means necessary.
The Republican Party may fracture, splitting off the principled Republicans from the unprincipled Republicans and Trump cultists.
If just a few principled center-right Republicans, like Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, abandoned this G.O.P. or were simply willing to work with a center-left Biden team, the Problem Solvers Caucus in the House and like-minded members in the Senate — the people who got the recent stimulus bill passed — would become stronger than ever.
Also, if the principled Republicans split from the Trump cult, the pro-Trump G.O.P. may have a very hard time winning a national election anytime soon. And given what we’ve just seen, these Trumpers absolutely cannot be trusted with power again.
What is it that Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz were dreaming of when they went full treason and tried to get Congress to reverse Biden’s win on the basis of the Big Lie? They were dreaming of a world of Trumpism without Trump. They thought that if they cravenly did Trump’s bidding now, once he was gone his base would be theirs.
But as Trump made clear at the rally that inspired some of his supporters to ransack the Capitol, the Trumps are interested only in Trumpism with Trumps.
Still, a recent Quinnipiac survey showed that more than 70 percent of Republicans still support Trump, you can be sure he will keep insisting it is his party .
If you look closely, there are actually four different Republican factions today: principled conservatives, cynically tactical conservatives, unprincipled conservatives and Trump cultists.
In the principled conservatives camp, I’d put Romney and Murkowski. They are the true America firsters. While animated by conservative ideas about small government and free markets, they put country and Constitution before party and ideology. They are rule-abiders.
In the cynically tactical conservative camp, which you could call the Mitch McConnell camp, I’d put all of those who tried to humor Trump for a while — going along with his refusal to acknowledge the election results until “all the legal votes were counted” — but once the Electoral College votes were cast by each state, slid into the reality-based world and confirmed Biden’s victory, some sooner than others.
They are “rule-benders.
The unprincipled Republicans — the “rule-breakers led by Hawley and Cruz, along with the other seditious senators and representatives who tried to get Congress to block its ceremonial confirmation of Biden’s election.
Finally, there are the hard-core Trump cultists and QAnon conspiracy types, true believers in and purveyors of the Big Lie.
I just don’t see how these four camps stay together. And for America’s sake, I hope they don’t.
But Democrats will have a say in this, too. This is their best opportunity in years to get some support from center-right Republicans. Be smart: Ban the phrase “defund the police.” Talk instead about “better policing,” which everyone can get behind. Instead of “democratic socialism,” talk about “more just and inclusive capitalism.”
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Sources: The New York Times Opinion section
