I worry a lot less about how the far right will respond if they lose in November than how they'll respond if they win, especially as a current resident of the DC area where so many people are civil servants. But I'm originally from the Texas Gulf Coast, so for many years the American brand of Christian conservatism was the only cultural/political framework I knew. No doubt some of the resentment on the Right is justified, as you mentioned, but honestly so much of it is delusions of persecution. The Trump supporters in my own family and in the area where I'm from are insanely privileged. They're upper-middle class, live in McMansions or otherwise nice homes on one-acre lots with swimming pools, own multiple properties, can afford to pay their kids' college tuition... For them, it's little more than chauvinism, arrogance, and a "fuck nerds" worldview. And for others, voting Republican is "just what they do" because it's what everyone around them does, and no one around them is particularly thoughtful. Our schools are mediocre, our people are gullible, and probably most important, which you alluded to, is the media ecosystem -- especially the conservative talk radio that instills this noxious anti-intellectualism and manufactures resentment toward some largely imagined Bad Guy. All this to say, they'll be pissed if Democrats win, but I think they'll be even more emboldened/dangerous if Trump wins.
Thanks for your thoughts, Maddy, and I agree with all of this. We're talking about two different (but related) things; the essay was very specific to the threat of political violence, which in terms of U.S. domestic terrorism is very much targeted at government function (buildings and personnel). I don't foresee that violence with a Trump win. What you're getting at, however, is also equally frightening in many respects, as it goes to the issue of how the next Republican administration will govern, and under what guiding ideology. And scrutiny of that, which I'll write about separately in the coming weeks, reveals quite a fairly dystopian picture; an alignment of the judicial "unitary executive theory" with the desire for a top-down rule-by-executive-order authoritarian regime applying nativist and revanchist policies.
It has been interesting watching the mask slip from Trump supporters you describe. The GOP has always been home to "country club Republicans" or "fiscal Republicans", but there were always a little more traditional 'small 'c' conservatives' than the anti-intellectual chauvinism that Trump has provided the vehicle for expression of. The idea that these McMansion-dwelling Republicans perceive some "Bad Guy" is deluded. I don't think it is for people in rust-belt, opioid-riddled towns that both Dems and GOP forgot. But this is the essential class divide that, take the 1% wealth out of the Republicans, is the defining characteristic of the American political realignment.
Anyway, for multiple reasons (both family in the states and geopolitically), I am alarmed by the prospect of the next Trump administration, and I hope sincerely it does not come to pass. Being very belligerent, I would take militias trying to blow up the Capital Building over a Trump administration.
Ok, I see what you mean now. I wasn't clear about it, but I was mainly just reacting to the Arlie Hochschild reference. I grew up around people similar to the ones she interviews for that book, and though their plight is real, they are just as delusional as the middle class and upper-middle class Republicans, and what unites them across the socioeconomic spectrum is a visceral belief in a liberal 'threat' to their 'values.' And many, though not all, seem to see violence against their 'enemies' as righteous (just look at the lack of empathy for Nancy Pelosi's husband). As such, I think political violence is less motivated by strife and more so by just ire for people like me; or, that's my fear. I'm no prognosticator, but I guess I worry that reaffirming this delusion a second time with a Trump win would lead to retribution against liberal politicians and everyday citizens, especially if Trump has already made his vengeance obvious and has expressed willingness to pardon Jan 6 insurrectionists and people like them. So I guess what I'm still trying to figure out is: Is 'President Trump' going to be a balm, or is he going to be a bomb, for the blood lust? I've been feeling very grim about this especially after reading Paul Lynch's Prophet Song. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I worry something like that could happen here. It almost feels like I'm watching dominoes fall in real time toward that outcome. I hope you're right and I'm wrong on the question of political violence; but like you said, we'll have even bigger problems on our hands if Trump really does win.
But I think the message in Hochschild's book, or at least the one that jumped out for me, was how among working class (and particularly rural) Republican voters, it was the knowledge and feeling of being belittled by American liberals, which they have. I don't think that is delusional; it is very real, at least for them. If we take three values - faith, family, and flag - those are three issues that American liberals have spent the past decade or more denigrating, mocking, and attacking. The Democrats have been haemorrhaging working class Hispanic and Asian voters for the past 8 years, but I doubt American liberals would label them "delusional", too. And viewed from the other side, American liberalism is riddled with its own delusions on race, sex/gender, education, crime, etc. American liberalism is soaked in secular/cultural Protestantism and turns everything into a test of moral purity, with fire and damnation for the heathens in red. What did we think the political backlash would be? I share your fear that the backlash brewing is authoritarian and potentially ugly and repressive when we think about how the Supreme Court champions executive power and immunity, and the odds of government-by-decree under a Trump presidency. Nor do I think at all that a Republican administration will help the multi-ethnic working class coalition it is building; it'll leave them to rot while Thiel et al. unleash their tech-feudalist capitalism dystopia.
Excellent piece and so very alarming: “A near-decade of fermenting in an ecosystem of paranoia and disinformation will come to a head in November.” As you said, if the democrats win, we’ll likely see widespread civil unrest and uprising.
Thanks Marie, I think it is alarming...I'm certainly hoping against hope that the Dem's win, undeserving as they are of it because the implications extend far beyond U.S. domestic policies, and to the wider geopolitical order. e.g., a U.S. that is now cosy pals with Putin is an alarming prospect.
Thanks a lot, Alan, your 3am Thoughts never disappoint, and this again provides, imho, a stunning analysis and a brilliant read! Current situation to me feels really terrifying, kinda like a "lose-lose-situation", in "an ecosystem of paranoia and disinformation", in which the Republicans' election defeat also holds great risks; as does their victory: As you also point out in the comment section here, the future of the geopolitical order, especially with regards to Nato, Ukraine and Putin (to name but a few..), in case of a Trump (and "Vance-Thiel" supported) administration, feels incredibly scary.. Thank you for putting it in words..
I worry a lot less about how the far right will respond if they lose in November than how they'll respond if they win, especially as a current resident of the DC area where so many people are civil servants. But I'm originally from the Texas Gulf Coast, so for many years the American brand of Christian conservatism was the only cultural/political framework I knew. No doubt some of the resentment on the Right is justified, as you mentioned, but honestly so much of it is delusions of persecution. The Trump supporters in my own family and in the area where I'm from are insanely privileged. They're upper-middle class, live in McMansions or otherwise nice homes on one-acre lots with swimming pools, own multiple properties, can afford to pay their kids' college tuition... For them, it's little more than chauvinism, arrogance, and a "fuck nerds" worldview. And for others, voting Republican is "just what they do" because it's what everyone around them does, and no one around them is particularly thoughtful. Our schools are mediocre, our people are gullible, and probably most important, which you alluded to, is the media ecosystem -- especially the conservative talk radio that instills this noxious anti-intellectualism and manufactures resentment toward some largely imagined Bad Guy. All this to say, they'll be pissed if Democrats win, but I think they'll be even more emboldened/dangerous if Trump wins.
Thanks for your thoughts, Maddy, and I agree with all of this. We're talking about two different (but related) things; the essay was very specific to the threat of political violence, which in terms of U.S. domestic terrorism is very much targeted at government function (buildings and personnel). I don't foresee that violence with a Trump win. What you're getting at, however, is also equally frightening in many respects, as it goes to the issue of how the next Republican administration will govern, and under what guiding ideology. And scrutiny of that, which I'll write about separately in the coming weeks, reveals quite a fairly dystopian picture; an alignment of the judicial "unitary executive theory" with the desire for a top-down rule-by-executive-order authoritarian regime applying nativist and revanchist policies.
It has been interesting watching the mask slip from Trump supporters you describe. The GOP has always been home to "country club Republicans" or "fiscal Republicans", but there were always a little more traditional 'small 'c' conservatives' than the anti-intellectual chauvinism that Trump has provided the vehicle for expression of. The idea that these McMansion-dwelling Republicans perceive some "Bad Guy" is deluded. I don't think it is for people in rust-belt, opioid-riddled towns that both Dems and GOP forgot. But this is the essential class divide that, take the 1% wealth out of the Republicans, is the defining characteristic of the American political realignment.
Anyway, for multiple reasons (both family in the states and geopolitically), I am alarmed by the prospect of the next Trump administration, and I hope sincerely it does not come to pass. Being very belligerent, I would take militias trying to blow up the Capital Building over a Trump administration.
Ok, I see what you mean now. I wasn't clear about it, but I was mainly just reacting to the Arlie Hochschild reference. I grew up around people similar to the ones she interviews for that book, and though their plight is real, they are just as delusional as the middle class and upper-middle class Republicans, and what unites them across the socioeconomic spectrum is a visceral belief in a liberal 'threat' to their 'values.' And many, though not all, seem to see violence against their 'enemies' as righteous (just look at the lack of empathy for Nancy Pelosi's husband). As such, I think political violence is less motivated by strife and more so by just ire for people like me; or, that's my fear. I'm no prognosticator, but I guess I worry that reaffirming this delusion a second time with a Trump win would lead to retribution against liberal politicians and everyday citizens, especially if Trump has already made his vengeance obvious and has expressed willingness to pardon Jan 6 insurrectionists and people like them. So I guess what I'm still trying to figure out is: Is 'President Trump' going to be a balm, or is he going to be a bomb, for the blood lust? I've been feeling very grim about this especially after reading Paul Lynch's Prophet Song. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I worry something like that could happen here. It almost feels like I'm watching dominoes fall in real time toward that outcome. I hope you're right and I'm wrong on the question of political violence; but like you said, we'll have even bigger problems on our hands if Trump really does win.
But I think the message in Hochschild's book, or at least the one that jumped out for me, was how among working class (and particularly rural) Republican voters, it was the knowledge and feeling of being belittled by American liberals, which they have. I don't think that is delusional; it is very real, at least for them. If we take three values - faith, family, and flag - those are three issues that American liberals have spent the past decade or more denigrating, mocking, and attacking. The Democrats have been haemorrhaging working class Hispanic and Asian voters for the past 8 years, but I doubt American liberals would label them "delusional", too. And viewed from the other side, American liberalism is riddled with its own delusions on race, sex/gender, education, crime, etc. American liberalism is soaked in secular/cultural Protestantism and turns everything into a test of moral purity, with fire and damnation for the heathens in red. What did we think the political backlash would be? I share your fear that the backlash brewing is authoritarian and potentially ugly and repressive when we think about how the Supreme Court champions executive power and immunity, and the odds of government-by-decree under a Trump presidency. Nor do I think at all that a Republican administration will help the multi-ethnic working class coalition it is building; it'll leave them to rot while Thiel et al. unleash their tech-feudalist capitalism dystopia.
Excellent piece and so very alarming: “A near-decade of fermenting in an ecosystem of paranoia and disinformation will come to a head in November.” As you said, if the democrats win, we’ll likely see widespread civil unrest and uprising.
Thanks Marie, I think it is alarming...I'm certainly hoping against hope that the Dem's win, undeserving as they are of it because the implications extend far beyond U.S. domestic policies, and to the wider geopolitical order. e.g., a U.S. that is now cosy pals with Putin is an alarming prospect.
Definitely concerning on so many fronts. Biden and Harris need to step down asap for democrats to have a fair chance.
Thanks a lot, Alan, your 3am Thoughts never disappoint, and this again provides, imho, a stunning analysis and a brilliant read! Current situation to me feels really terrifying, kinda like a "lose-lose-situation", in "an ecosystem of paranoia and disinformation", in which the Republicans' election defeat also holds great risks; as does their victory: As you also point out in the comment section here, the future of the geopolitical order, especially with regards to Nato, Ukraine and Putin (to name but a few..), in case of a Trump (and "Vance-Thiel" supported) administration, feels incredibly scary.. Thank you for putting it in words..