While Republican elites held on, they never denounced the openly anti-democratic forces in their midst and instead decided they would try to harness the extremist, far-right popular energies on the base. As a result, the whole party kept being pulled to the right.
9/11 worked as an accelerant for the xenophobia and nativism that increasingly defined rightwing political culture well into the political mainstream; it heightened the white conservative fear of demographic and cultural change, of the non-white “Other” taking over.
Against this backdrop of an already riled-up rightwing base, Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008. In the rightwing imagination, Obama epitomized the threat from brown foreigners, the dangers of Black radicalism, and the triumph of extreme leftism.
On the Right, Obama’s presidency was widely perceived as an affront to America’s “natural order,” it supercharged the perception of a loss of cultural dominance. Donald Trump, risen to political prominence as the leading proponent of birtherism, was supposed to restore “order.”
@tzimmer_history@mastodon.social He did anything but! I just wrote a blog post on the divisiveness of *rump and the MAGA Republican party here, this morning:
"Cancel Culture? Sign Me Up!, But Not Like That…"
https://justrosy3.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/cancel-culture-sign-me-up-but-not-like-that/
However, the first Trump presidency did not bring about the comprehensive undoing of all the racial and social change the Right disdains so much. Instead, it ended with millions of people protesting against racist police violence in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
To the Right, the mass mobilization of a multi-racial coalition was not a glimpse of a necessary racial reckoning, but the harbinger of national doom. The summer of 2020 was yet another in a series of inflection points that further escalated the perception of imminent threat.
To the Right, the mass mobilization of a multi-racial coalition was not a glimpse of a necessary racial reckoning, but the harbinger of national doom. The summer of 2020 was yet another in a series of inflection points that further escalated the perception of imminent threat.
The general sentiment that traditional conservatism needs to be replaced by a much more radical form of politics to answer the “leftist” challenge is now being echoed across the Right. People at the center of rightwing politics are now rejecting the label “conservatism” outright.
The general sentiment that traditional conservatism needs to be replaced by a much more radical form of politics to answer the “leftist” challenge is now being echoed across the Right. People at the center of rightwing politics are now rejecting the label “conservatism” outright.
What unites all factions on the Trumpist Right is the belief that a “leftist” revolution has already taken place, the radical “Left” has taken over the major institutions of American life. As there is nothing left to conserve, nothing short of a radical “counter-revolution” can save the nation.
What unites all factions on the Trumpist Right is the belief that a “leftist” revolution has already taken place, the radical “Left” has taken over the major institutions of American life. As there is nothing left to conserve, nothing short of a radical “counter-revolution” can save the nation.
The Right’s political and intellectual leaders believe they are engaged in a noble war for the “soul,” the identity, the very existence of the nation. If the stakes are so high, moderation, restraint, and patience are not an option. There is no line they don’t feel justified to cross.
The Right’s political and intellectual leaders believe they are engaged in a noble war for the “soul,” the identity, the very existence of the nation. If the stakes are so high, moderation, restraint, and patience are not an option. There is no line they don’t feel justified to cross.
Thomas Zimmer
