I noted a few days ago how the right-wing protestors against social-distancing orders carry an implicit message that democratically-elected governments are, strangely enough, to be considered anti-democratic dictatorships imposing their will on the populace. Greg Sargent makes a point that’s less theoretical and closer to the mark: what many of the protestors oppose isn’t just democratic governance but Democratic governance. He reminds us that the president has been making a similar argument for years now, for instance when he has suggested that the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives doesn’t actually speak for the American people. The president and the protestors share a belief that government is always to be treated as illegitimate when controlled by Democrats.
As Sargent also reminds us, though, this isn’t an idea that originated with Trump, but one that’s central to the Republicans’ decades-long effort to combat their increasing inability to win majority support by essentially arguing that the only people who really count in our country are GOP voters. This manifests in a variety of familiar ways, such as when Republicans distinguish between “makers” (white, virtuous, heartland Americans) and “takers” (minority, parasitic city dwellers). And as Sargent notes, this mindset has already been part of Trump’s response to the coronavirus, as seen in the president’s speculation about imposing quarantines on blue northeastern states to, in Sargent’s words, “protect virtuous Red America [. . .] from getting infected by a disease exported by depraved Blue America.”
But under the pressure of the coronavirus crisis, I think that the deserving us-versus-undeserving-them division that underlies the president’s and the GOP’s primary political stance has revealed a facet that’s been hiding in plain view all along, nestled among the racism, white supremacy, and authoritarianism: namely, that neither the Republican Party nor Donald Trump really believe in the existence of the United States. Sure, they know there are millions of people living in a particular geographic region called the United States — but a single united country populated by citizens with equal rights? Such a reality is no longer comprehensible to them, but how could it be? Once you’ve decided that the majority of Americans don’t actually deserve full citizenship — and how else can we describe an attitude that believes in voter suppression and other restrictions for Democrats trying to cast ballots – what’s left of the nation? It’s hollowed-out, a shadow of its former self, an artificial entity rather than a living, breathing organic whole.
Donald Trump certainly has never acted like someone who believed in the United States, but only in the citizens and states that voted for him. This has been demonstrated since his first days in office, as he’s made it clear his only constituency is his base. And as coronavirus has ravaged blue states and urban areas, he’s shown a fundamental indifference to the loss of life and to the prospect of alienating the voters of states he never expected to win in 2020. Beyond the sociopathic attitude to mass death among non-supporters, he has indicated time and again that states are on their own in the fight against coronavirus. Has there ever been a modern president so unwilling to remind us that we are all in a crisis together, that state borders matter little at a time like this? It’s not just a logical result of his habit of breaking the country up between supporters and opponents — it’s also been his way of evading responsibility for his catastrophic lack of leadership. If it’s necessary to deny the existence of a unified country in order to deny his responsibilities as president of that unified country, then so be it.
But the same attitude is prevalent in the congressional GOP. As just one example: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been speculating about the desirability of allowing states to declare bankruptcy due to the pandemic, rather than the federal government sending them money to prevent governmental insolvency. It’s notable that McConnell brought up state pension obligations as something he doesn’t want to help fund; after all, many of those public pensioners are union members, and the modern GOP is defined partly by its hatred of organized labor. But the larger message is unmistakable: states and their citizens are considered not to be part of the United States, and there is no logical relationship between the U.S. Congress and the needs of individual states governments. This is ideological abstraction raised to an art form, in the name of denying a reality evident to the average American: we’re all U.S. citizens first and state citizens second, and if states need a bailout so that the basic functions of government can continue, then we goddamn better get it from the federal government.
A president and an opposition that don’t actually believe in the United States: this would seem to leave a hole large enough in the political firmament for an opposition party to drive a No Malarkey-sized tour bus through.