The profound sadness of Trumpism
The class system of the antebellum South was so entrenched that not even civil war and economic devastation could uproot it. When the planter class launched a war to preserve the region’s lucrative, slave-based economy, the ranks of the Confederate army were not overwhelmingly filled with slaveholders. The majority fought alongside the aristocrats to preserve a system that did not benefit them so richly as their betters. But it rewarded them with a social safety net, a floor below which no white man could fall so long as black people were lower. For that, they were prepared to sacrifice the Union and their lives.
Out of the Civil War’s ashes, southerners birthed the Lost Cause myth. It would arise after Reconstruction from the reactionary Redemption movement. Southern whites acted swiftly and violently to reclaim political and economic domination of their region from the formerly enslaved — in some places, a majority population — newly empowered by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Over decades, they would erect monuments in town squares across the South in memory of heroes who fell in the “War of Northern Aggression,” also remembered in Southern revisionism as “The Recent Unpleasantness.”
Last week, court documents supporting the FBI search of the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Fla. revealed he is under investigation for illegal removal, possession, and possible destruction of Secret, Top Secret, and above-Top-Secret government documents related to national security. MAGAstan exploded in fury, denial, and a flurry of bullshit in his defense.
As I watched the video clip below of Trumpists protesting at Mar-a-Lago in support of golden-spooned Donald J. Trump, the usual bemusement gave way to profound sadness. Like Confederate soldiers before them, elite and non-elite conservatives have given over their lives to another Lost Cause. They are lost in a miasma of propaganda, misinformation, myths, and near-worship of a corrupt, emotionally damaged man for whom truth is a stranger and lies his only friends.
Why? Because Trump and his Republican allies promise to make their social safety net great again. Not the one built with tax dollars, but the social one that preserves their “right” to political dominance. Trump promises that even as a minority his believers will have a floor below which no matter their economic status they will not fall. Others who once knew their places will know them again. Believe him.
Trump has managed, as the planter class did over a century and a half ago, to enlist in his army foot soldiers who will give their time, their money, and their last full measure of devotion in that cause.
Last week, one of Trumpism’s soldiers gave his life for the new conservative Lost Cause.
Dave Neiwert profiles one of the newest would-be martyrs in the 21st-century Lost Cause:
Ricky Shiffer was like a lot of MAGA “patriots,” often proclaiming his willingness to die for Donald Trump. Like seemingly all Trump fans, he was outraged that the FBI served a search warrant on the ex-president’s Florida estate, eager to declare “civil war” on “the Deep State.” Shiffer was such a True Believer that on Thursday, he tried to attack the FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio, and ended up dying next to a cornfield a few miles away.
Shiffer believed he was dying a martyr to the cause. But his only reward was for the community of terminally online Trumpists with whom he spent his time to immediately denounce him as a “crisis actor” who had performed a “false flag” operation with the sole purpose of smearing MAGA people by association.
Inflation is killing them, Republican leaders insist, and gas prices, even as they fall precipitously. But gas is not so expensive that it keeps true believers from parading in gas-guzzling trucks festooned with Trump and American flags. Inflation does not keep them from buying more tee shirts, hats, and other Trump merch. Trump will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no Trump, to borrow from the Freak Brothers.
“He has never lied about anything!” a Lost Causer insisted to CNN last week outside Mar-a-Lago.
Trumpists, some armed, bluster and strut about a new civil war. Even as they sow distrust, they will not hold back progress toward a more-perfect, more-inclusive union. The war they itch for is already fought and lost even if the violence is not over.
Never Trumper Mona Charen concluded:
This experiment in self-government requires a minimum amount of social trust to succeed. With every tweet that spreads cynicism and lies, with every call to arms that welcomes civil conflict, Trumpist Republicans are poisoning the nation they so ostentatiously claim to love.
January 6th was their Gettysburg, the high-water mark of Trumpism. There will be no Appomattox Courthouse moment. The rebels are trudging home still skirmishing, defiant in defeat, spinning myths, deluded and unbowed in their faith in a false prophet.
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