by ANTHONY DiMAGGIO
VOICES – White supremacy in America was never simply a rightwing phenomenon.
It pervades all parts of the ideological spectrum. As I discussed in my CounterPunch piece last week, numerous polls show that Republicans, independents, and Democrats embrace white nationalism, even if it is most popular on the right.
In my last essay, I talked about the success of the Republican Party over the last three decades in selling the myth that it is the true representative of the “white working-class.” This is a propaganda campaign that’s long been promoted by reactionary pundits and party officials to rebrand the party and obscure its embrace of corporate power and the wealthiest one percent.
Related to this myth, the dominant national narrative now portrays Trump supporters, not as racist or bigoted, not as xenophobic or sexist, or as enabling a fascistic party leader a la Donald Trump. We are told, instead, to “take it easy” on individuals who are supposedly driven by economic grievances and financial insecurity and anxious about being left behind in an era of corporate globalization, manufacturing job loss, and rising worker insecurity.
As I documented in my last piece, there’s little evidence to validate the myth that Trump supporters are more likely than other Americans to be economically insecure. Most come from decent to well-to-do financial backgrounds, earning incomes that qualify them as middle to middle-upper income. The predominant view among social science experts is that reactionary socio-political attitudes are the primary statistical predictors of Trump support.
And yet, the myth of the insecure white working-class Republican voter has had the effect, practically speaking, of mainstreaming rising rightwing extremism in America. It’s obscured the increasingly reactionary and hateful socio-political attitudes that are primarily driving support for Trumpism. This myth of the insecure Trump voter has meant the normalization of a white supremacist and neofascistic American right, as intellectuals, pundits, and political officials operating on the right, center, and left parts of the political spectrum refrain from talking about the Republican Party or Trump as embracing neofascistic politics, despite alarming signs that this is the case.
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