Power, Opportunism, and Ideology in Republican Politics About cowardice and conviction, the complicity of conservative elites, and the permission structure that governs the Right. My new piece - about Lindsay Graham and about so many more like him:

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We must imagine these people as true believers in this one assertion that defines rightwing political identity: that all versions of “leftism” and liberalism are merely variants of the same fundamentally illegitimate political project of leveling hierarchies of race, gender, religion, or wealth.

I wrote about the foundational belief on the Right - that equality is an “un-American” evil. This piece is free to read. But recently, only paywalled pieces have generated new memberships and thereby revenue. I am hoping we can buck the trend so that I can keep publishing free essays regularly.

This piece is free to read - no paywall. If you find it helpful, consider subscribing for free. And if you are a frequent reader of Democracy Americana, please consider a paid membership. As an independent writer, I fully rely on the support of my readers to make this work possible. Thank you!🙏

What has united the different factions on the Right is a commitment to fighting against any attempt at leveling hierarchies of race, gender, religion, and wealth - to defending a “natural order” that is, in their view, not up for political deliberation or subject to democratic control.

Demonizing Democracy The Right has long derided any attempt at leveling racial and social hierarchies as anti-American “socialism” or “communism.” What they are actually fighting is equality. Some thoughts from my new piece: 🧵

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I offer a brief history of the Right deriding anything that threatens the social and racial hierarchy, any sort of leveling attempt, as "communism" or “socialism,” using those terms to demonize anyone who dares to question the righteousness of past, present, or future white reactionary elite rule.

There is a direct line from white supremacists protesting school integration in the 1950s and 60s holding signs that read: “Race Mixing is Communism” to the Trumpist attempts to demonize their political opponents as “communist” traitors

This piece is free to read - no paywall. If you find it helpful, consider subscribing for free. And if you are a frequent reader of Democracy Americana, please consider a paid membership. As an independent writer, I fully rely on the support of my readers to make this work possible. Thank you!🙏

They are true believers not necessarily in Trump, the person, but in the political project Trumpism stands for: The white grievance politics that seeks to forever preserve America as a place of strict hierarchies of race, gender, religion, and wealth.

If we want to properly understand what drives and fuels the Right’s ongoing radicalization, if we want to adequately gauge the danger we are in, we better start from the position of imagining these people as “true believers.”

Frankly, if they were all just cynical opportunists, we would be in a less dangerous situation. Because it is that underlying belief, that dogma of rightwing politics, that provides the basis on which they have all given themselves permission to radicalize and self-Trumpify.

But beyond the opportunistic propaganda, there is also a founding belief on the modern Right that all versions of “leftism” and liberalism are merely variants of the same fundamentally illegitimate political project of leveling hierarchies of race, gender, religion, or wealth.

Do they really believe any of this? Obviously, there is an element of rank opportunism, political strategy, and vile propaganda. To some extent, they are just trying to attach a scary label to their opponents that is intended to mark them as “Un-American.”

Such conspiratorial anti-“Left” paranoia has so pervasively shaped the ecosystem in which the leaders of today’s Right as well as the average MAGA dweebs exist that this is just what’s bubbling out of them when they start riffing – like JD Vance did in his press conference.

There is a direct line from “Race Mixing is Communism” in the 1950s and 60s to “The real enemy is liberal democracy” in the early 1990s to today’s Trumpist assault on the civil rights order and democratic self-government.

As the Cold War ended, they were convinced that the forces of socialism, “globalism,” and liberalism – all variants of the same “leftist” threat – were in fact advancing more rapidly, and a much more radical politics was urgently necessary to stem the tide.