On Alternate Realities, White Supremacy, And The Future Of The Right Wing

There is a section of America that lives in an alternate universe. The right-wing media ecosystem, online disinformation, and Donald Trump combined to create it.

The result is that alternate realities, not ideology, split politics.

Just look at the 2020 election. The idea that there was extensive voter fraud in 2020 is a disprovable fallacy, a lie cooked up by Trump to soothe his own ego, but a significant part of the country believes it as fact. This distrust of national electoral institutions has never happened before in the United States.

The increasing authoritarian bent of the Republican party is real. I say this not to sensationalize or predict a fascist takeover, but when there is so much support for overturning a democratic election and reinstalling a candidate, it is important to call it what it is. The seeds are being sewn for future attempts to claim fraud and overturn unfavorable elections. The Republicans didn’t have the political capital to do it in 2020, but thanks to America’s flawed electoral institutions, they very well might in 2024. Trump’s screeds against moderate Republicans who are perceived as too weak in their support for him is both a ploy to consolidate his personal influence and to insert politicians who are willing to go anti-democratic.