I started this series on what I call the Trump MCU—the MAGA Conspiratorial Universe—to emphasize that the threat to our democracy is not just Trump. It’s not even just Trump and his cult. To borrow from Hillary Clinton, the threat is from a “vast right-wing conspiracy” of interlinked radical groups and demagogic opportunists. While it may be comforting to dismiss these groups as fringe elements representing only a minority of Americans, that may be false comfort. There are fundamental flaws in our system that give an organized minority the tools to prevail over the preferences of the majority. As David Leonhardt documented in a front-page article in Sunday’s New York Times, “The power to set government policy is becoming increasingly disconnected from public opinion.”
Back in 2016, when Clinton said that half of Trump supporters could be put into a “basket of deplorables,” she was clobbered for it. But if you re-read that phrase in context, it’s prophetic.
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now have 11 million.”
Hillary Clinton focused in on a key Trump strategy—one that is still in play—reaching out to the “fine people” in radical fringe groups, validating them, and pulling them into the voting booth. What she failed to foresee, however, is that when Trump fails to gather enough deplorables to prevail at the voting booth, he’ll goad them to take to the streets. He did it on January 6th, and he’s doing it again as he faces multiple indictments. When Hugh Hewitt in an interview last week, questioned him about a potential indictment, Trump offered a string of barely veiled threats of mob violence:
“I think you'd have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we've never seen before. I don't think the people of the United States would stand for it…”
“Q: What kind of problems, Mr. President?
“I think they'd have big problems, big problems. I just don't think they'd stand for it. They will not, they will not sit still and stand for this ultimate of hoaxes.”
It’s not hard to connect Trump’s embrace of QAnon to the “big problems” he threatened. As Professor Laurence Tribe noted:
Two years ago, Trump claimed he didn’t know much about QAnon, “other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate." Well, of course he’d appreciate it. He always appreciates flattery. Given the way QAnon have elevated Trump to messianic status, and robed him in god-like powers, how could he resist?
I wish I could link to Sarah Cooper performing this bit from 2020 where Trump feigns ignorance about the group while also revealing how closely he’s following them. But, alas, all I could find was Trump himself. He’s almost as funny and yet he’s much more menacing.
This year, Trump has abandoned the mask of ignorance. He has gone full Q, posting dozens of Q messages to his Truth Social site and culminating at last Saturday’s Rally with a Qgasmic Qlimax.
Ben Collins, who covers disinformation, extremism and the internet for NBC News, Tweeted this:
Zeeshan Aleem, an MSNBC Opinion Columnist, expands on the reasons that QAnon is such a good fit to serve as Trump’s apocalyptic storm troopers.
It seems likely that Trump recognizes that QAnon followers represent his best bet at forming a militant vanguard for his ever-increasingly authoritarian political movement. Dozens of QAnon believers have already committed acts or attempted acts of vigilante (and domestic) violence. They were key players in the Jan. 6 insurrection. And they’re at the center of a new kind of politically infused spirituality that blends proto-fascist thinking, conspiracy theory and Evangelical Christianity. As University of Pennsylvania scholar and MSNBC columnist Anthea Butler describes it, these followers “imagine themselves part of the ‘end times’ and saving the nation.” They’re primed to do whatever it takes to restore Trump to power, out of a belief that it’s essential for civilization and humanity.
If there was any fault in Clinton’s calling out the “basket of deplorables,” it was that she imagined the deplorables were only “half of Trump’s supporters.” That was a low-ball estimate then, and, by now, it’s even further off the mark. Trump shows no inclination—or ability—to appeal to mainstream audiences. He’s at a point where he can’t add anyone to his coalition other than deplorables.
This year, when Joe Biden called Trumpism “semi-fascism,” He likewise underestimated.
“It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something — it’s like semi-fascism.”
There’s nothing semi- about GOP fascism. Not to say that all Republicans are fascists, but those who lean that way, don’t stop at half measures. They are all in. But more alarming still is the silence of the putative non-fascist Republicans who—with few exceptions—refuse to denounce the fascists among them. They daren’t speak out. They need the votes.
For further reading:
David Leonhardt on the crisis in American democracy
Zeeshan Aleem on QAnon as the base of Trump’s anti-democracy mob.