Good Thing None of Them Are Chri―… Oh.
People see 47 as good more from the fact that they see the other side as evil, rather than seeing 47 as actually good.
See C C,
"Partisan hostility" #1↗,
in re Warner (2025) on protest motivation;
see also,
Tiassa (#3)↗:
… the reason they are rejected is, quite literally, because they are wrong. They're wrong about physics and biology, even requiring alternate definitions of terms in order to make their arguments. Their behavioral expectations are ad hoc and extemporary, not so much stitched together as only extant in their given moment. One of the main reasons they might feel rejected is that they are so frequently and thoroughly wrong.
Because the other part of that is everybody else ....
.... Historically, conservatives have long feared the other party; it's easy enough to recall the Red Scare, but we could just start with the Reagan Awakening and the role of anti-communism in orienting voters against Democrats. For Black Lives Matter, for instance, there is an historical reason to be wary and even defensive against mainline conservative iteration; the Tea Party, though, was just the latest reiteration of antiliberal fearmongering dating back at least to the Red Scare. And where, albeit in different ways, both BLM and climate concerns also have historical reason to distrust mainline liberal iteration, it is undeniable that Republicans have carved out an untenable position¹, elevating the threat value of the partisan generality.
In sum, we must guard against false symmetrization, which is of course a ceaseless vigil ....
.... While Warner's paper "challenges the idea that protests are only about policy change", it does occur to wonder if there is anything particularly new about the idea that "protesting can also be a way to stand against the other party". But what might be new is what drives people to focus on party as the source of their sense of threat: While rightist fear of liberalism is nothing new, sharpening conservative dissent against an increasingly dissatisfactory reality might have transformed a fundamental presupposition about political discourse; i.e., it is harder to enforce pretenses of taboo against talk of supremacist hatemongering, disqualifying crackpottery, and authoritarian corruption if those become the platform. That is, it's harder to require liberals to find alternate explanations for conservative behavior when Republicans insist on making the point for them, and this might actually be a fundamental transformation of our political discourse.
It's the difference between the Southern Strategy and not bothering to pretend anymore. And if there is no more customary obligation to not go there, then the calculation of the threat value of Republican partisan identification or proximity is radically, if not fundamentally transformed.
From there, it only gets a little more complicated; we can look back to
early 2024↗:
"You can't defeat an opponent," scolds Bret Stephens, "if you refuse to understand what makes him formidable." The New York Times columnist and former Wall Street Journal editor offers up another ritual tithe to conservative idolatry: His point is that Trump's critics need to stop saying things about Trump or his supporters that Trump and his supporters don't like. "Maybe it's time", Stephens preaches↱, "to think a little more deeply about the enduring sources of his appeal".
But that's the thing, the enduring sources of Trump's appeal are his supremacist, authoritarian attitudes and thrill of empowerment people feel in behaving abusively. According to Stephens, Trump's critics should criticize "without calling him names, or disparaging his supporters, or attributing his resurgence to nefarious foreign actors or the unfairness of the Electoral College."
In other words, critics are supposed to address the supremacism without calling it supremacism, receive and engage supporters without upsetting them, hear Trump boast of his corruption without saying anything about it, and hear him make false claims about elections without responding. This comes back to the heart of Stephens' argument: The enduring source of Trump's appeal is the supremacism as justification for abusive behavior.
And the thing is, this isn't new. Stephens is just trying for another ring around the ouroburos.
It's not that I would so directly disagree, WoW, with your summary, but, rather, consider what it means: While there are those who resent such discussion of Trump supporters, between then and now what have we actually seen from Trump, and what has been the reaction and response of his supporters? Compared to other reasons or priorities people might claim for supporting Donald Trump, it's one thing that they see him as some sort of important figure in their demarcation and valuation of good and evil, but I might also simply point to what they think is good. The part they didn't vote for, apparently, is the part that hurts or even merely inconveniences them. And we might look at two reasons for this, and both are in play: Some part of this really is unimaginable, and predictably so according to the axiom that truth is stranger than fiction; also, though, there are the practical, intersectional parts they just didn't think through beforehand. Some of their kids are going to die because of their votes for Trump and other Republicans, and while it's unlikely they will call such an outcome good, it was at the very least negotiable in their pursuit of what they think is good.
"If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build, and was not able to finish.'"
(Lk. 14.26-30 [RSV]↱)
And that's the thing about diversity; what links Trump supporters of diverse creed, and even color, is their struggle and strive toward complete and perfect selfishness. Human beings can always find common ground, just as long as they all get something of satisfactory value out of it.
