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. Last week, JD Vance was asked to define “socialism” – and his response offered the blend of ridiculous, unintentionally funny, outrageous, breathtakingly stupid, and acutely dangerous that is the true hallmark of rightwing politics in the Trump era. 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. Infamously, segregationists routinely derided the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s as communist. They protested the integration of public schools holding signs that read “Race Mixing is Communism.” Martin Luther King? A communist, of course. This particular political attack stood in a long tradition of demonizing racial equality and any form of social progress. Prominent pro-slavery theorists of the Antebellum South, for instance, often claimed that the real goal of abolitionists was to institute socialism. In the 1950s and 60s, equating the struggle for multiracial democracy with “communism” was common not just among redneck protesters or white supremacist militias, but also within the halls of conservative thought leadership – at the National Review, for instance. It is correct to view anti-“communism” as the glue that kept the Modern Conservative movement together - as long as we understand that the leaders of mid-century Modern Conservatism made very little distinction between Marxism, socialism, communism, or liberalism. This also helps explain why the protagonists of the American far right and leading movement conservatives did not think the downfall of the Soviet empire in the early 1990s was a reason to relax or moderate. 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. 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. 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. 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.” 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. 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. 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.” 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. 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!🙏
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