Thread by @tzimmer_history

This is a crucial piece by @ThePlumLineGS, outlining why the Select Committee should explore the “white rage” behind the January 6 insurrection.

I’d like to add: The white nationalist threat doesn’t emanate from the fringes of society – but from the Republican Party itself. 1/

https://twitter.com/theplumlinegs/status/1409890243852054535

We must not miss the forest for the trees: “White rage” is not just a fringe phenomenon in American politics, and the people who stormed the Capitol were not just a bunch of frustrated individuals from the fringes of society. 2/

They also weren’t simply seduced and overwhelmed by Trump’s #BigLie – I reflected on why it would be dangerously misleading to imagine the insurrectionists as victims of brilliant propaganda here: 3/

https://twitter.com/tzimmer_history/status/1397183068734099462

Instead, Trump’s “Big Lie” about Democrats supposedly stealing the election from him can flourish because it channels and crystallizes certain ideological core claims and beliefs that have defined the American Right for a long time. 4/

Chief among them is the idea that only Republicans represent the will of "real" (read: white Christian patriarchal) America, while Democrats are representing a coalition of people who don’t deserve their place in the body politic. 5/

As a result, Democratic governance is seen as fundamentally illegitimate – and preventing Democratic rule by whatever means is therefore necessary to preserve “real” America. That’s the ideological basis on which the January 6 insurrectionists felt justified in their actions. 6/

The extent to which this type of white nationalism has become the mainstream position within the Republican Party – and the extent to which the GOP has become the party of white grievance – is best illustrated by the way it handles the “extremists” in its midst. 7/

Take Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance. I generally believe that it’s best to ignore her extremist nonsense. This is different, however, because what is on display here isn’t just *her* extremism, her “white rage,” but that of the Republican Party itself. 8/

https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1408925252181127168

It’s too easy – and misleading – to focus on individual extremists like Greene and treat them like crazy outliers. What we really need to grapple with is the fact that holding such extremist views does not get you in trouble within the Republican Party. 9/

It’s not just Greene. Over the past few weeks there have been big stories about Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, for instance – the guy who called the January 6 insurrection a “normal tourist visit” and refused to shake Officer Michael Fanone’s hand. 10/
cnn.com/2021/06/16/pol…

Or about Rep. Scott Perry, who compared Democrats to Nazis and described them as an unpatriotic threat to America – you’ll notice the similarities to what Greene said about AOC. 11/

https://twitter.com/cam_joseph/status/1408421939677437952

Instead of pretending these are fringe figures in a big tent party, we should focus on the fact that the GOP is happy to accommodate such people, or the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election – or, of course, the insurrectionist-in-chief Donald Trump. 12/

Why is that? Because most Republicans – the vast majority of elected officials and over half of GOP voters – share the underlying ideology and agree with the political project of installing white conservative minority rule that animates people like Greene, Clyde, and Perry. 13/

The exact language Marjorie Taylor Greene uses might be slightly crasser than what some Republicans are comfortable with, and they might disagree with some aspects of the public image she projects. 14/

But substantively, what Greene says here basically represents the mainstream position among Republicans and has been conservative orthodoxy for quite some time – since long before Trump. 15/

https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1408925252181127168

In this view, Democrats are not just political opponents, but a radical, Socialist, Un-American political force, pursuing a fundamentally illegitimate political project of turning what is supposed to be a white Christian nation into a land of multiracial pluralism. 16/

There is nothing new about this either. How to define “real America”? And who are the people entitled to rule this land? Those questions have always been contested. 17/

The conflict between “civic nationalism” and “racial nationalism,” as historian @glgerstle puts it, has always shaped the American project. Those who clung to to a vision of America as a truly multiracial, truly pluralistic democracy have always fought an uphill battle. 18/

Meanwhile, the idea that America was a white Christian nation, and thus a place where white Christians – and wealthy white Christian men, in particular! – had a right to social and political dominance, has actually been the historical norm. 19/

Before the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, “democracy” in the U.S. described a system that was fairly democratic if you happened to be a white Christian man – and something entirely different if you were not. 20/

Until the 1960s, there was a pretty stable, bipartisan elite consensus that democracy should not interfere with the established power structure, and so the system was deliberately set up in a way that left white Christian male dominance largely untouched. 21/

While democracy had always been contested, it had not been, until that point, a partisan issue. Anti-democratic forces were spread across the parties: The Democratic Party, for instance, existed as an alliance between liberal democrats and white supremacist Dixiecrats. 22/

After World War II, however, the parties began to polarize over the question of whether the country should become a liberal, multiracial democracy: a system in which all citizens count equally and elect a representative government with majoritarian rules. 23/

Over time, one party came to advocate this liberal, multiracial version of democracy – while the other is committed to doing whatever it takes to prevent what conservatives believe would be the downfall of “real” (read: white Christian patriarchal) America. 24/

Since the 1960s, the GOP has been focusing ever more narrowly on the interests and anxieties of white conservatives; at the same time, the electorate has become ever more multiracial and pluralistic, due to cultural and demographic changes. 25/

In this situation, the longstanding anti-democratic impulses on the Right have become more pronounced, especially since the 90s – as has the tendency among conservatives to deny the political opponent any legitimacy while claiming to be sole representatives of “real America.” 26/

This ideology has shaped the Republican Party for a long time, as this great thread by @SethCotlar reminds us: Examples from 40 years of Newt Gingrich denigrating and demonizing Democrats as an Un-American threat that must not be allowed to destroy “real America.” 27/

https://twitter.com/sethcotlar/status/1276976264713080832

This strand of anti-Democratic demonization culminated in the birtherism conspiracy, depicting Barack Obama as a socialist, Un-American “Other,” elected by an illegitimate coalition – and still, today, about 50 percent of Republicans are birthers. 28/
fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-b…

Such ideas are, at most, half a step removed from what the openly Trumpist “intellectual” sphere is pushing, the Claremont types: That whoever voted for Biden shouldn’t even be regarded as “American.” Over half the population: not part of the volk. 29/

It is crucial to recognize the political project that brings all of these groups and ideas together and unites the American Right: To prevent multi-racial, pluralistic democracy and defeat an enemy they perceive to be a threat to white Christian dominance. 30/

That’s what makes this situation so acutely dangerous. If they were truly just fringe individuals, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of this world and the people who stormed the Capitol would have no chance of bringing democracy down. 31/

But there is a conservative base that supports them; a major party that elevates them; a rightwing intellectual sphere that provides fuel and cover for them. It’s a broad and radicalizing anti-democratic movement, and America’s pro-democracy forces need to acknowledge that. 32/

I’m not sure if the new Select Committee will have the guts to address this openly. It would certainly ruffle quite a few feathers, as it would attack the pervasive myth of white innocence that has been so foundational throughout America’s history. 33/

The dogma of white innocence holds that we have to go look for innocent explanations, explanations that portray white Americans as fundamentally decent, leave their innate goodness intact, and depict them as ultimately blameless for the very outcomes they pushed. 34/

And so we’ve heard about how the January 6 insurrectionists must have been animated by economic anxiety, by justified frustration with the system – or maybe just seduced and misled by the brilliant demagogue in the White House. 35/

While definitely shocking, in a longer-term historical perspective, the attack on the Capitol maybe wasn’t all that surprising – considering that significant steps towards multiracial democracy have almost always been accompanied by outbursts of white supremacist violence. 36/

In 2017, @AdamSerwer criticized the idea that Trump’s rise was anything but a white supremacist backlash against progress towards multiracial democracy as the “nationalist delusion.” Similarly, let’s not be delusional about what happened on January 6. 37/
theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

Debating the nature and extent of “white rage” will be painful, maybe politically dangerous. But @ThePlumLineGS is right: If America wants to achieve the breakthrough towards multiracial democracy, it is a debate that needs to happen. 38/

https://twitter.com/theplumlinegs/status/1409922252699746311

These are perilous times for American democracy. But let’s not forget that reactionary forces are radicalizing because America really has become more liberal, more pluralistic, and is closer to being a truly multiracial democracy than it’s ever been. 39/

In this sense, that there is even a chance of having the kind of debate that @ThePlumLineGS demands is a testament to the fact that there has been real social, cultural, and racial progress. We’re experiencing an acutely dangerous situation – but also one of great promise. /end