"Cause I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."
"Don't let me be misunderstood." Hit song for The Animals, 1965
Maybe Democrats misunderstood Trump's appeal. Maybe it only looked like poorly-closeted racism.
Maybe Trump's supporters believe in a fair and just universe.
I am probably overthinking this.
Maybe the Trump phenomenon is simple, another outbreak in a line of charismatic authoritarians adept with a powerful medium. Trump joins Adolph Hitler, Father Coughlin, and Joseph McCarthy. Or maybe the simple explanation is the economics of for-profit media. Trump supporters are hooked on Fox News, with its nonstop propaganda of outrage. Maybe Trump's support can be best understood by demographics. Trump's supporters skew less-educated, less-urban. They skew more likely male, more religious, more Southern, more working class, more White, and higher on tests of supposed "racial animus."
Pundits can't get away from that racial angle. Trump appeals to racism, pundits explain. Poll questions that asked about whether Black poverty is explained by racism or if Blacks should just work harder and improve their own circumstances show a strong skew.
The Simpsons TV show summarized conventional thinking about Trump and race.
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| "NOT RACIST. BUT #1 WITH RACISTS." |
That consensus fueled a reaction on the left. Democrats ramped up the progressive project of finding racism everywhere. They said it was systemic and pervasive, sometimes overt and sometimes subtle, hiding in presumably neutral places. In laws. In zoning. In standardized tests. In cultural norms. In math. Most people don't think they are racist and they resent the blanket accusation. Thus the "war on woke."
Maybe Democrats misunderstood Trump's appeal. Maybe it only looked like poorly-closeted racism. Some research at Harvard's Department of Government gives an alternate perspective: The "just world" hypothesis. That world view also helps explain conspiratorial thinking on the political right. Trump supporters believe in a just world.
In the "just world" understanding of events, people get what they deserve. Karma is at work. The world is orderly, whether that order is apparent or not. God -- or a secular universe -- has a plan for everything. Misfortune is apparent, but why? People get the just consequences of their sins. In the "just world" view, notions of systemic racism or prejudice being engines of circumstance are thought to be shallow excuses. If people are poor it is their fault. Some arenas of life confirm a "just world" view. People who study hard or work hard tend to do better than slackers. Aesop explained it. The prudent and diligent ant survives; the foolish grasshopper dies. In the "just world" view, Democrats who attribute misfortune to unfair systems with Critical Race Theory are making a profound mistake about how the world works.
The "just world" notion runs into trouble when misfortune happens to oneself or to one's team, tribe, or country. It couldn't be our fault. Something must have cheated the system. Rigged it. Depending on the situation it might be Jews who stabbed Germany in the back. Maybe communist infiltrators in the State Department. Maybe vote-switching tabulators, RINO election officers, or "2,000 mules" bringing in counterfeit ballots. It is something secretive and malevolent. It requires bad actors, infiltrators, and turncoats. The "just world" hypothesis invites conspiracy thinking. It shifts blame.
Trump is a uniquely persuasive leader. Fox News' financial incentives were made clear to them after they announced that Arizona went for Biden. They could not report Trump's loss without shedding audience. They chose to keep their audience so they amplified Trump's message. GOP governors, senators, other potential influencers initially dared to counter the message, but they saw the Trump-Fox tidal wave of support among voters and got out of its way. It is safer to suggest that lifelong Republicans like Attorney Generals Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, that FBI Director Christopher Wray, Election Cybersecurity Chief Christopher Krebs, Republican state election officials, and Trump-appointed judges are all in on a conspiracy than it is to deny the conspiracy.
In a just world bad things don't "just happen." Steve Bannon has a sign displayed in his War Room studio. One can buy a tee shirt repeating it. It is a way to say there are conspiracies while denying there are conspiracies.
3 comments:
The difference between Nixon's Watergate hearings and the Congressional hearings into the behavior and malfeasance of Trump was the simple fact that the Big Three TV channels carried the hearings live. There wasn't any counter facts or commentary. Fox News did not exist. All public airways, licensed by the FCC were required to broadcast public service spots and offer counter information regarding positions taken in the news broadcasts. TV news was classified as the public service segment by the stations, it was not the station's profit center. Ratings were not the focus of news programing. The licensing and ownership of TV and radio stations was limited to three by any single individual. All this changed with the elimination of the fairness doctrine and rise of cable. Now, if you have enough money, you could have a monopoly of TV, radio and newspapers across the country, filtering the narrative. Enter Lee Atwater and Rupert Murdoch and the creation of Fox News.
People watching Fox News or Newsmax didn't see the House Committee hearing into Trump malfeasance, leading to two impeachments. So no wonder Trump followers have no other information regarding misstatements and lies but only a polished facade of a false narrative. Trump supporters now live in a news silo and reject any attempt to shine light on Trump's behavior or action. His supporters are conditioned to turn off Fake News.
If the “just world” understanding of events helps explain conspiratorial thinking on the political right, how does that account for their victim mentality? It sounds like, in their view, Blacks are getting what they deserve, but Trump and his supporters aren’t. Maybe the “just world” has something against fascism or has a liberal bias.
Considering that Trump was the biggest blowhard in the racist “birther” movement, his racist appeal wasn’t really closeted at all. Certainly, there are people who have gone overboard in their zeal to root out racism – that’s the nature of zealotry. But any harm they’ve caused can’t begin to compare with that caused by the centuries of racism this country has experienced.
Of course, racism isn’t Trump’s only appeal. What Republicans should be asking themselves is why their undisputed frontrunner is a lying, belligerent sociopath who launched an attempted coup and who obviously couldn’t care less about anyone but himself. Maybe the party has become as crazy as he is.
The last two republican presidents have been elected by republicans who like the fact that
"he hates the same people I hate" (Trump) and "he'd be a good guy to have a beer with" (Bush).
Meanwhile, the Democrat presidents fix the deficit, increase job growth and work towards stopping climate change and global conflict.
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