You’re a white woman from Youngstown. Or I should say any of us could be the white woman in Youngstown who got beaten up by a Trump supporter from New Jersey while exercising her free Speech, as the President of the United States cheered for the aggressor. In an authoritarian nation, violence is the tool to ensure compliance.
As I wrote the other day, the vengeful system Trump has created harkens back to the Ancient world, where fear maintained monarchy. But it is in no way constitutional or democratic. Though if Make America Great Again meant going back to that time, we’d be stoning adulterers and killing people for mixed fabrics. I suspect many MAGA would be out of luck.
Trump employs the Bible as a tool, one of many to stoke fear in the populace. But fear culture created Trump. Outlets like Fox and talk radio reframed news as entertainment to keep people listening. While a carrot might be somewhat enticing, the right wing understood that the stick is much more useful. This is largely because the United States is susceptible to the forces of the Christian right, a group that is actually the minority and populates the most sparsely inhabited parts of our country. Their outsized impact on national politics largely has to do with money and slavery. The Electoral College and the Senate maintained the status quo for places often populated by enslaved or Native people. Creating a system where land mattered more than dense populations resulted in a nation that largely voted against the interests of the many. But it also emboldened the Christian right to believe they are the majority.
In addition, Reagan really stoked racial tensions, implying that urban poverty was a choice versus rural poverty, which was a strength. The poor white Americans continue to be able to see themselves as better off while consistently needing farm subsidies to exist. Reagan’s work remains central to Trump’s campaigns. MAGA is just the white people who loved Reagan with more AI pictures.
But the divisions of our nation can only remain unquestioned when white Americans don’t feel the impact. Now, finally, a decade after Trump rose on the national stage, MAGA is feeling the impact of their racism. Or are they? Family farms are tanking. Rural people can’t afford food. Truckers can’t afford diesel. They still haven't gone the intellectual distance to see that their unfettered love for Trump created their current circumstances. Most importantly, they haven’t understood that their personal actions created public problems.
The toxic individualism Trump fostered cannot work out for a nation, because he rules through scorekeeping and retribution. His cronies and flunkees will be fine, but the mass of his supporters needs a government that works for the people. Until they realize Trump’s venal, vengeful reign is never going to help them, other than allowing them the ability to be openly racist, our nation will remain in the same place.
Which takes me to the rally in Youngstown. One woman attacked for her views should be framed as an egregious moment of government overreach and an attack on the First Amendment. If the conservatives are actually about the Constitution, then this should be an alarm. But until the Republicans in Congress truly work for the nation, instead of for Trump, we will remain in a society where coercion and force are the norm. If she is susceptible to violence, so are any of us.
State violence that needs to be a force against change must be indiscriminate and unpredictable. The counterpoint to this violence is intelligence and conviction. We’ve spent a decade allowing MAGA to be the most grotesque they can, only to find new lows, again and again. Will the Republicans ever stand up for their constituents? Probably not. But then they'll find themselves just like that woman from Youngstown, and we will feel very little sympathy for their plight.
