Post-civil rights GOP is our largest white identity group. Maybe we should thank Trump for making it so obvious
By Chauncey DeVega
By these criteria, the post-civil rights era Republican Party is the United States’ largest white identity organization, one in which conservatism and racism are now one and the same thing.
Trump's hands. Mitt on his knees. Cuckservatives. What the party's junk obsession says about 2016 Republican Party
By Chauncey DeVega
Trump’s proto fascist right-wing producerism is also a threat to Republican Party orthodoxy. Like the type of “socialism” practiced by the Nazis, Donald Trump wants to ensure that the in-group has access to resources from the State (healthcare, jobs, improved infrastructure) that are denied to the Other. The Republican Party’s elites want to destroy the social safety and government support for most Americans (the white middle and working classes will be given some resources only as a means of leveraging their anxieties against people of color and the poor). Trump offers a different vision: He will maintain the submerged state and other benefits for whites, and those others he identifies as “real Americans” and “deserving,” while unapologetically denying them to those individuals and groups whom the “Trumpeteers” want to dominate and abuse with impunity.
Trump's running to get revenge on everyone who laughed at him, and that's why his supporters identify with him
By Amanda Marcotte
The modern conservative movement is filled with people who believe they are due deference from the rest of us but are getting mockery instead. The conservative media has stoked this narrative of cultural resentment for decades, too. “Liberal elite” is a common catchphrase on the right. Some might think that term is an economic one, but in reality, it’s a cultural one. The “liberal elite” is mostly composed of people who belong to the middle class: Journalists, college professors, artists, even lawyers, most of whom are not millionaires. Meanwhile, the right absolutely hero worships conservative billionaires like the Waltons, the Kochs, and yes, Donald Trump.
No, the “liberal elite” is a term of cultural resentment, rooted in a thwarted sense of conservative entitlement. It’s backed by this narrative that there once was a time when America was “great” because the culture was controlled by white Christians, but at some point, usually the 1960s, the undesirables—hippies, artists, people of color, secularists, feminists, gay people—started taking over. This sense that something has been stolen and needs to be taken back is the organizing narrative of conservative populism.
Trump is tapping into the same narrative that propelled Richard Nixon into the White House, fueled the “Disco Demolition” night of straight white men burning records associated with said “others,” helped start the Moral Majority and the Christian right, and is the engine that drives right wing talk radio and the relentless rage machine of Fox News to this day. And while it’s trendy, especially amongst those who believe the white working class is one pamphlet on democratic socialism away from leaving the Republicans, to say that it’s based on economics, the fact is these flare-ups aren’t quite as pegged to economic trends as one might think but can quite easily be linked to white conservative anger over cultural moments that remind them they are not the actual owners of American culture. With Obama to leave office soon in triumph, his legitimacy as not just the first black president but one of the greater American presidents secured, the anger is boiling over.
Hideous, disgusting racists: Let’s call Donald Trump and his supporters exactly what they are
Media wants to call them "economically anxious working-class whites." There's a clearer, more honest name to use
By Chauncey DeVega
Moreover, Conor Friedersdorf’s claim is an example of a very perverse and twisted phenomenon in post-civil rights era America, where to call a white person a “racist” is somehow worse than the harm that racism, white supremacy, and white privilege does to the psychological, material, and physical well-being of black and brown people.
This dynamic has also prevented many in the commentariat from directly describing today’s Republican Party as the United States’ largest white identity organization, one that reflects an ideology where conservatism and racism is one and the same thing.
As I have written about here at Salon and elsewhere, “Trumpism” is not an aberration or outlier, something that is alien to, something outside of, or distant from the Republican Party. The popularity of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential primaries, with his unapologetic racism, bigotry, and nativism, are the uncensored id of the Republican Party
Trump's fueled by white resentment, racism and nativism. Why does the media mistake that for working-class anxiety?
By Chauncey DeVega
Why this anxiety? Why are so many members of the chattering class dancing around the clear and obvious truth that Donald Trump’s political movement is largely driven by white racial resentment, overt racism, bigotry and nativism?
Part of this answer lies in how telling the truth about white racism in the post-civil rights era is considered worse than the harm it does to people of color. Moreover, to suggest that a given white person is a racist—or alternatively, that white people as a group either benefit from institutional racism or are active racists—is an indictment of both their personal character and the various myths (meritocracy; American Exceptionalism; individualism; equality, etc.) that the country’s political culture rests upon. Together, these answers form a type of electrified third rail in American political discourse that few members of the chattering classes are willing to stand on. This is a profound failure of moral leadership.
The unwillingness by Milbank, Friedersdorf and others to plainly and directly state that Donald Trump and his supporters are part of a racist political movement is an example of what sociologist Robin DiAngelo has described as “white racial fragility” on a massive scale.
Racists love Trump: This is what they mean by “taking the country back”—yet another poll confirms racial and cultural resentment is driving Donald Trump’s rise
72 percent of Trump supporters said government has gone too far in assisting minority groups
By Sean Illing
The “highest level of agreement” with this notion that America has lost its identity is expressed by Trump supporters–a staggering 85 percent. 91 percent of Trump voters also say their “beliefs and values are under attack,” again the highest of any candidate. There is a kind of persecution mania operating here. “Many American voters, especially Republicans, are dissatisfied with their own status and the status of the country,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, “but by far the most dissatisfied are Donald Trump’s supporters, who strongly feel that they themselves are under attack.”
Lest you think this isn’t about race, note that the Quinnipiac poll asked respondents if they believe the “government has gone too far in assisting minority groups.” Predictably, 72 percent of Republicans agreed compared to 18 percent of Democrats. Among Trump voters, however, the number was 80 percent. These numbers align with a recent American National Election Study (ANES) and Washington Post/ABC News poll, both of which show that support for Trump is positively correlated with racial animus.
“America has lost its identity” is an ambiguous phrase, but let’s not pretend we don’t know what it means. The people who think America has lost its “identity” are the same people who believe we have to take the country back. Yes, many Trump supporters are suffering from an economy in which they have no place. And there are legitimate concerns about free trade and a corrupt establishment. But what distinguishes the typical Trump is his or her propensity to project their frustration on brown or black people.
By Harlan McKosato
The problem with white privilege is that when that’s all you know and you’re comfortable with it; then you’re confronted with an equality movement that you didn’t necessarily see coming, you probably do feel like you are being discriminated against. Trump has tapped into that emotion, although we all know white privilege is not going away anytime soon.
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