A Backlash to Democracy Born of Humiliation and Rage

Republican nationalism is nihilism intent on destroying, not building America

The historic election of President Barack Obama seems, in retrospect, like the pinnacle of American civilization. The 21st Century began with enormous hope and bubbled with mind-blowing progress. The dirty Industrial Age had given way to the sleek Information Age, where answers to the world’s questions were literally at our fingertips. There were no limitations on our dreams, and everything was within the realm of possibility. We were a forward-looking nation that embraced the future.

This momentous age of possibility culminated with the taboo-shattering election of our first African American president. A country that brought black people to North America in chains, unshackled a few of its enduring demons by elevating Obama to the apex of power. Sure, America had still not reached its moral summit or fully lived up to its lofty ideals, but it did appear that we surpassed the middle of the mountain. It seemed the direction we were heading in was onward and upward.   

Or so we thought.

The rise of the Information Age coincided with the decline of American towns steeped in the Industrial Age. High paying union careers disappeared, replaced by depressing, low wage jobs at places like Wal Mart. Charming downtowns were replaced with dumpy Big Box stores, physical eyesores that matched the deteriorating lives of the once-proud people who populated these small towns. In a digital-based economy, the best jobs required college degrees, leaving many blue-collar workers, with only high school diplomas, feeling hopeless and helpless.

For the millions of Americans left behind, often to no fault of their own, the excitement felt at the beginning of the new century curdled. With their economic prospects dimmed and their self-worth diminished, they were lost and felt abandoned by our political leaders. Of course, the disastrous economic crisis of 2007-2008 deeply exacerbated and accelerated these existing trends.

This is not to excuse their ruinous, anti-democratic political behavior today, but to offer an explanation. However, it’s also worth pointing out that many people thrust into these dire situations had the imagination and initiative to evolve and reinvent themselves. Not everyone has the wherewithal to do so, but a large number Americans did, and they are thriving today. As conservatives love to hypocritically preach to poor minorities, they could have “lifted themselves up by the bootstraps” or moved to places with more opportunity but elected not to do so.     

Many of those who couldn’t find their place in modern society, turned to self-harm. They popped opioids to numb the pain, drank excessively to forget their new station in life and some people even took their own lives. These so-called “deaths of despair” have led to a once unthinkable drop in life expectancy in America.

When turning negatively inward didn’t solve their problems, many people began to lash outward. Instead of taking personal responsibility, they searched for narratives to explain their new place in the world. Into this vacuum stepped various demagogues who cunningly profited from these peoples’ pain. Some of these charlatans were religious leaders and others were media personalities. They conjured scapegoats who were easily blamed.

Hate peddling hucksters had an easy time finding villains in an era of dynamic social change. As peoples’ lives were hastily unraveling, they watched successful, attractive gay couples on television shows. African Americans were succeeding at the highest levels of sports, politics, business and entertainment. More hispanics were suddenly present in communities that had traditionally been homogeneously white. Women were leading companies and no longer depended on the largess of men. Turned off by fundamentalism, millions of Americans were abandoning religion.

While these seismic changes were gradually occurring in small towns, their full impact could be seen in movies or television shows. So, you had unemployed or underemployed white men and women, sometimes strung out on opioids, watching glitzy shows modeled on Sex and the City that take place in New York and Los Angeles. Differences in rural and urban lifestyles had always existed. But now, especially with widening gaps between rich and poor and expanding media options, these disparities were thrown in the faces of the downwardly mobile daily.

Over time, this led to a festering resentment and a deepening antipathy towards what were perceived as fancy city slickers. Never mind that many of these urban dwellers were working their asses off at two or three jobs to make their rent and pursue their dreams. A prime example of the growing cultural divide was Barack Obama telling Iowa farmers at a campaign stop, “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.” The New Republic recalls:    

Arugula-gate, as it inevitably came to be called, was immediately deemed a gaffe—a sign that Obama was an out-of-touch elitist. (The New York Times noted that there wasn’t a Whole Foods in all of Iowa.) And throughout the rest of the campaign, the candidate’s taste in food would often be used as a class-signifying cudgel against him.

The first clear manifestation of this irrational anger was the Tea Party. People with diabetes, two teeth and no health insurance were fighting to quash Obamacare, which they clearly needed. You had protesters screaming, “Keep the government’s hands off my Medicare”, with their volcanic ire surpassed only by their epic ignorance.

This was the beginning of the end of reality. Those who felt slighted were feverishly organizing with likeminded “victims” – with money from right wing foundations-- to attack their putative enemies. While there had long been an exploitative right-wing infrastructure to profit from nursing their perceived snubs, there still lacked a single charismatic leader to mold the whining into a political weapon.      

Enter Donald Trump.

Although he’s a gilded multi-millionaire who inherited his wealth, Trump shares a damaged psyche and a paranoid mindset with his followers. Both the cult leader and his sycophants believe that they failed to reach their potential because of haughty elites who were out to get them. Trump, an endless vortex of grievance and a black hole of eternal victimhood, was the one person who could uniquely articulate their fears, but more importantly, target their foes.

People are often perplexed as to why most Trump supporters no longer believe in democracy.  It’s because they think that democracy has failed them. They don’t care if the system collapses because it’s the system itself that they believe betrayed them. What they call “nationalism” is really nihilism. This pathological movement, born in despondency and disillusionment, exists solely to inflict pain on those they believe have wronged them.

This explains why the GOP had no platform at their last convention. A platform requires standing for something, while the Republican Party is now merely a stage for performing spasmodic, therapeutic outbursts to help their supporters heal their deep-seated emotional wounds.  

They misidentify these tantrums as “owning the libs”, but you can’t own something if you burn it down.  This ignoble crusade has never been about making America great but dragging those they hate into their universe of despair. It’s about exploiting politics to create a national “Bob Dylan moment”, where these embittered, lost souls can wag their fingers and bellow at the top of their lungs, “How does it feel?”

Well, it certainly doesn’t feel good. But after the mindless bloodletting finally subsides, these zealots may realize that their lives haven’t improved through right wing politics. Like desperate crabs trying to escape a boiling pot, they’ve simply dragged others down into their cauldron of rage and desolation. When your entire goal is hurting people to screech “how does it feel” we’ll all suffer and find our crumbling nation “Blowin’ in the wind.”

I wish we could return to the day when Obama was elected, where anything seemed possible. Well, anything is still possible today, but not necessarily in the positive way we imagined. Who knows where we go from here, but the midterm elections will offer a few clues.