Thread by @tzimmer_history

This is a crucial observation – and it points to a problematic distortion in the broader political discourse: White people parading guns are automatically coded as “regular folks,” or “real Americans” in the parlance of the Right, while their socio-economic status is ignored.

https://twitter.com/drewmckevitt/status/1530995770492497920

In addition to the fact that the GOP is all in on the culture of gun-toting militancy, that’s another reason why Republican politicians have their families pose with whole arsenals of firearms: They want to signal how very much in touch they are with “real America.”

https://twitter.com/josh_moon/status/1530199939619475461

Contrast this with, for instance, the fact that Kamala Harris was widely derided on the Right for her “elitism” last November when she had the audacity to buy some French cookware:

This wasn’t just a predictable bad-faith attack from the rightwing outrage machine (although it certainly was that too): It was also well in line with the established parameters of who gets derided as “arrogant elite” and who gets celebrated as “regular folks.”

It is indeed a striking feature of the American political discourse: In determining whether or not something counts as extravagant or aloof, the socio-economic dimension is almost entirely ignored - all that counts are the cultural sensibilities of conservative white people.

Parading expensive tactical gear and weaponry in public? Must be “regular folks” demonstrating their love of freedom and frustration with the liberal elite-run Big Government infringing on their right to be left alone.

When people can afford to invest in a collection of kevlar vests and all sorts of weaponry, this is seldom discussed as the extravagant lifestyle of white conservatives (as opposed to, say, liberal elites indulging in “luxury items” like e-bikes).

In that way, the conventions of political terminology are often entirely in line with the self-description of white conservatives - not coincidentally creating and perpetuating the idea of “regular folks” as a clearly racialized category of specific political valence.

These conventions perpetuate the pervasive assumption of a white “normal” that still governs the American political and cultural discourse. Concepts like “working class,” or “parents,” or “Christians” often come with a silent “white.”

It’s obvious in the use of the term “working class,” for instance. Here is a particularly striking example, from one of the leading post-/anti-liberal intellectuals: “working class” is just white people with certain reactionary sensibilities; “everyone” is just whites.

The most ridiculous example of this is the attempt by Republicans to present themselves as the party of the working class. That’s entirely detached from the socio-economic reality of U.S. society – unless, of course, you’re talking about white conservative America only.

But it’s not just conservatives doing it. In the collective white imaginary, the socio-economic dimension is almost entirely ignored - the term “working class” just refers to a type of professional occupation in combination with reactionary cultural sensibilities of white people.

Here, for instance, is sociologist James Davison Hunter in a PBS @NewsHour interview diagnosing a “class culture war”: The U.S. split into two camps, a progressive elite vs the conservative middle and working classes - which only makes sense if you imagine America as all white.

https://twitter.com/NewsHour/status/1464074180660539427

From this depiction, you would never understand why non-white working-class people or socially conservative Black people overwhelmingly align with those progressive “elites” and vote Democratic. Once again, the actual nature of the conflict is sanitized and obscured.

The - sometimes implicitly accepted, but more often specifically intended - effect of using the term “working class” in this way is to legitimize the actions of reactionary white people and insulate them from critique: they’re just “regular folks,” their gripes must be justified.

The hard-to-kill myth that it was “the working class” that lifted Trump into the White House has that exact effect: Just like that, supporting Trump has nothing to do with race, but is the manifestation of a legitimate gripe of those down there directed at the arrogant elite.

This, of course, has been one specific version of the American promise since before the country was even founded: A nation in which white Christians would get to define what counts as “American,” who does and who does not belong. It’s now the core promise of Republicanism.

Addendum: Count on Ted Cruz to deliver the most ridiculous version of current rightwing discourse. But he builds on ideas that shape the collective imaginary: People with reactionary sensibilities are to be regarded as “regular folks” and allowed to perform ritual anti-elitism.

https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1530764063432749057