To hear some tell it, something inexplicable has happened to the GOP, conservatism, and, more broadly, the American right.
A party and movement once tethered to principles like smaller government, free trade, and deregulation has become a party of quasi-authoritarianism (meaning, big government), tariffs on imported goods, and regulation (at least of those industries that upset them, like media or the tech sector).
But in truth, nothing is surprising about the right’s latest iteration. The MAGA forces, unleashed by Trumpism, were always there, waiting to be loosed upon the rest of us.
Unfortunately, we misunderstood the nature of the beast.
We trusted them when they said they believed in pseudo-libertarian principles, the likes of which someone like Paul Ryan might have espoused. But Ryan was always an outlier. He never represented the soul of the American right.
The dirty little secret of American conservatism is this: it was always and only about the desire to maintain traditional lines of authority.
It isn’t about small government.
It isn’t about freedom and liberty.
It’s about defending the prerogatives of traditionally powerful groups against the challenges of less powerful ones: the rich over the poor; men over women; Christians over everyone; whites over people of color; and now, increasingly, straight and cisgender folks over the LGBTQ community.
It’s a point that political scientist Corey Robin makes in his book The Reactionary Mind: to those on the far right, authority and hierarchy, traditionally understood, are valid by definition. Those in power are in power because they deserve to be there. They are the better people, the more deserving.
By contrast, those at the bottom of society’s hierarchies are less capable, less deserving, and less qualified. They, too, deserve their station. And we know this simply because they are there, and everyone gets what they deserve.
Understood this way, the seeming transformation of the American right makes perfect sense.
In fact, understood this way, it isn’t a transformation at all.
Historically, the desire to cut taxes, deregulate industry, and support free trade all served the interest of the dominant class hierarchy. Such policies and programs defended the prerogatives of the rich.
But now, although tax cuts are still a high priority for this bunch, the right seeks to serve the economic needs of business — especially manufacturing interests — through aggressive tariffs on trade, specifically against China.
Not to mention, such a trade policy prioritizes another line of traditional authority in the right’s mind: American authority in a global trading environment.
Oh, and to the extent that our number one trade competitor happens to be a nation filled with billions of people of color, tariffs and other barriers to Chinese trade also support the traditional hierarchy of American whiteness.
But most importantly, today’s culture warriors — the real heart of the modern right — though they may seem a departure from the deficit hawks and financial elites of the old GOP, are playing a similar game.
Again, it is the game of defending traditional authority and hierarchy, extending that notion beyond economic power to racial, religious, sexual, and gender categories as well.
These folks had always been part of the reactionary coalition — whether in 19th-century anti-immigrant parties, the antebellum (and segregation) era Southern Democrats, or the John Birchers of the 1950s and ’60s. But for most of American history, the need to aggressively defend traditional hierarchies of whiteness, masculinity, heteronormativity, or Christianity wouldn’t have been as pressing precisely because these identities weren’t as contested as they are today.
Oh sure, when whiteness was challenged, traditionalists pushed back violently. But outbursts of white rage, as Carol Anderson calls it, were not sufficient to root the entirety of the nation’s right wing. Whiteness remained too powerful for racial anxieties to suffice as the glue for a larger conservative politic.
And given the ubiquity of male power, which only began to show cracks in the last 50 years (and the relative newness of genuine religious pluralism and the LGBTQ liberation struggle), it’s no surprise it was the economic hierarchy of elites to which the right long gave its primary attention.
But now, with the prerogatives of white dominance being contested by multiculturalism and the decline in the white share of the population, traditionalists are rallying to defend “Western culture” against the “great replacement” foisted upon America by demographic change.
Now, with the prerogatives of Christian hegemony challenged by religious pluralism — whether Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or the increasingly common irreligious — traditionalists are rallying around the cross and pushing a more militant form of Christian nationalism than would have seemed necessary even a generation ago.
With marriage equality and trans visibility challenging the overwhelming normalcy of heterosexual and cisgender identity, those committed to traditional views of gender and sexuality — typically informed by their faith beliefs — are rising to defend them.
And, of course, with women taking their place alongside men in leadership positions in corporate America and flexing their power by challenging longstanding prerogatives of maleness (including sexual harassment and assault), it is no surprise that the right would increasingly appeal to traditional masculinity.
Each of these aspects of the culture war is part of the worldview that has always animated so-called conservatives or the larger right-wing — not just in America but stretching back to revolutionary France, whence the political concepts of left and right come.
Just as with their support for policies that shore up the wealthy at the expense of workers — slashing estate and capital gains taxes, breaking unions, and freezing the minimum wage — so too, support for abortion and textbook bans, immigration restrictions, more aggressive policing, and rolling back LGBTQ rights are about restoring what they perceive as the diminished power of traditional authority.
Which is to say, if you vote for candidates of the right, you are voting for the past.
Even more, you are voting for a society dominated by a distinct minority of the population: white, male, financially secure, straight, and conservative Christians — likely far fewer than 20 percent of the nation’s people, at most.
You are voting for a society that will, by definition, seek to limit the influence, power, and even opportunity of anyone who isn’t one of those things.
You are not voting for America — the ideal of which was always broader than that — but for a racialized, theocratic, and patriarchal kleptocracy.
You are a traitor to the ideal of America and should be treated as such from this point forward.
We aren’t the ones who hate America — you are.
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Previously Published on Medium
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