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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMust-Read from the Atlantic: The Nationalist's Delusion
Found this brilliant analysis of Trump's support among white Americans thanks to a tweet from John Harwood:
Link to tweet
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-nationalists-delusion/546356/
The specific dissonance of Trumpismadvocacy for discriminatory, even cruel, policies combined with vehement denials that such policies are racially motivatedprovides the emotional core of its appeal. It is the most recent manifestation of a contradiction as old as the United States, a society founded by slaveholders on the principle that all men are created equal.
While other factors also led to Trumps victorythe last-minute letter from former FBI Director James Comey, the sexism that rationalized supporting Trump despite his confession of sexual assault, Hillary Clintons neglect of the Midwesthad racism been toxic to the American electorate, Trumps candidacy would not have been viable.
Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump has reneged or faltered on many of his biggest campaign promiseson renegotiating NAFTA, punishing China, and replacing the Affordable Care Act with something that preserves all of its popular provisions but with none of its drawbacks. But his commitment to endorsing state violence to remake the country into something resembling an idealized past has not wavered.
He made a farce of his populist campaign by putting bankers in charge of the economy and industry insiders at the head of the federal agencies established to regulate their businesses. But other campaign promises have been more faithfully enacted: his ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries; the unleashing of immigration-enforcement agencies against anyone in the country illegally regardless of whether he poses a danger; an attempt to cut legal immigration in half; and an abdication of the Justice Departments constitutional responsibility to protect black Americans from corrupt or abusive police, discriminatory financial practices, and voter suppression. In his own stumbling manner, Trump has pursued the race-based agenda promoted during his campaign. As the president continues to pursue a program that places the social and political hegemony of white Christians at its core, his supporters have shown few signs of abandoning him.
-snip-
Trumps great political insight was that Obamas time in office inflicted a profound psychological wound on many white Americans, one that he could remedy by adopting the false narrative that placed the first black president outside the bounds of American citizenship. He intuited that Obamas presence in the White House decreased the value of what W. E. B. Du Bois described as the psychological wage of whiteness across all classes of white Americans, and that the path to their hearts lay in invoking a bygone past when this affront had not, and could not, take place.
-snip-
Birtherism is a synthesis of the prejudice toward blacks, immigrants, and Muslims that swelled on the right during the Obama era: Obama was not merely black but also a foreigner, not just black and foreign but also a secret Muslim. Birtherism was not simply racism, but nationalisma statement of values and a defining of who belongs in America. By embracing the conspiracy theory of Obamas faith and foreign birth, Trump was also endorsing a definition of being American that excluded the first black president. Birtherism, and then Trumpism, united all three rising strains of prejudice on the right in opposition to the man who had become the sum of their fears.
-snip-
Trumpism emerged from a haze of delusion, denial, pride and crueltynot as a historical anomaly, but as a profoundly American phenomenon. This explains both how tens of millions of white Americans could pull the lever for a candidate running on a racist platform and justify doing so, and why a predominantly white political class would search so desperately for an alternative explanation for what it had just seen. To acknowledge the centrality of racial inequality to American democracy is to question its legitimacyso it must be denied.
-snip-
While other factors also led to Trumps victorythe last-minute letter from former FBI Director James Comey, the sexism that rationalized supporting Trump despite his confession of sexual assault, Hillary Clintons neglect of the Midwesthad racism been toxic to the American electorate, Trumps candidacy would not have been viable.
Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump has reneged or faltered on many of his biggest campaign promiseson renegotiating NAFTA, punishing China, and replacing the Affordable Care Act with something that preserves all of its popular provisions but with none of its drawbacks. But his commitment to endorsing state violence to remake the country into something resembling an idealized past has not wavered.
He made a farce of his populist campaign by putting bankers in charge of the economy and industry insiders at the head of the federal agencies established to regulate their businesses. But other campaign promises have been more faithfully enacted: his ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries; the unleashing of immigration-enforcement agencies against anyone in the country illegally regardless of whether he poses a danger; an attempt to cut legal immigration in half; and an abdication of the Justice Departments constitutional responsibility to protect black Americans from corrupt or abusive police, discriminatory financial practices, and voter suppression. In his own stumbling manner, Trump has pursued the race-based agenda promoted during his campaign. As the president continues to pursue a program that places the social and political hegemony of white Christians at its core, his supporters have shown few signs of abandoning him.
-snip-
Trumps great political insight was that Obamas time in office inflicted a profound psychological wound on many white Americans, one that he could remedy by adopting the false narrative that placed the first black president outside the bounds of American citizenship. He intuited that Obamas presence in the White House decreased the value of what W. E. B. Du Bois described as the psychological wage of whiteness across all classes of white Americans, and that the path to their hearts lay in invoking a bygone past when this affront had not, and could not, take place.
-snip-
Birtherism is a synthesis of the prejudice toward blacks, immigrants, and Muslims that swelled on the right during the Obama era: Obama was not merely black but also a foreigner, not just black and foreign but also a secret Muslim. Birtherism was not simply racism, but nationalisma statement of values and a defining of who belongs in America. By embracing the conspiracy theory of Obamas faith and foreign birth, Trump was also endorsing a definition of being American that excluded the first black president. Birtherism, and then Trumpism, united all three rising strains of prejudice on the right in opposition to the man who had become the sum of their fears.
-snip-
Trumpism emerged from a haze of delusion, denial, pride and crueltynot as a historical anomaly, but as a profoundly American phenomenon. This explains both how tens of millions of white Americans could pull the lever for a candidate running on a racist platform and justify doing so, and why a predominantly white political class would search so desperately for an alternative explanation for what it had just seen. To acknowledge the centrality of racial inequality to American democracy is to question its legitimacyso it must be denied.
-snip-
This is an extremely long article, but well worth the read.
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Must-Read from the Atlantic: The Nationalist's Delusion (Original Post)
highplainsdem
Nov 2017
OP
NRaleighLiberal
(60,038 posts)1. Kick/rec - thanks for posting. Excellent.
highplainsdem
(49,124 posts)2. You're welcome, and thanks for the rec!
brush
(53,978 posts)3. K&R. Thanks for posting. Bookmarking for later. "The Atlantic" always kills.
ellie
(6,929 posts)4. Bumping this
This article was an extremely good albeit depressing read.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,756 posts)5. "Everyone should read this essay:"
Solly Mack
(90,803 posts)6. K&R
Last edited Sat Nov 25, 2017, 07:05 PM - Edit history (1)
Dont make the mistake of thinking David Duke is a unique phenomenon confined to Louisiana rednecks and yahoos. Hes not, Percy said. Hes not just appealing to the old Klan constituency, hes appealing to the white middle class. And dont think that he or somebody like him wont appeal to the white middle class of Chicago or Queens.
These supporters will not change their minds, because this is what they always wanted: a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear, while reassuring them that that rage is nothing to be ashamed of.
a majority of white voters backed a candidate who explicitly pledged to use the power of the state against people of color and religious minorities, and stood by him as that pledge has been among the few to survive the first year of his presidency. Their support was enough to win the White House, and has solidified a return to a politics of white identity that has been one of the most destructive forces in American history. This all occurred before the eyes of a disbelieving press and political class, who plunged into fierce denial about how and why this had happened.
Trumps great political insight was that Obamas time in office inflicted a profound psychological wound upon many white Americans, one that he could remedy by adopting the false narrative that placed the first black president outside the bounds of American citizenship. He intuited that Obamas presence in the White House decreased the value of what W. E. B. Du Bois described as the psychological wage of whiteness across all classes of white Americans, and that the path to their hearts lay in invoking a bygone past when this affront had not taken place, and could not take place.
If you haven't read the article yet, please do! Well worth the time.
dalton99a
(81,708 posts)7. "White voters backed a candidate who pledged to use the power of the state against people of color"
Great piece.
Solly Mack
(90,803 posts)8. Kicking
The article is that good.
highplainsdem
(49,124 posts)9. Kicking again. And my thanks to all the people who've kicked this!