He’s a father of a 28-year-old son and he’s hurting. A retired police officer, he proudly voted for Donald Trump every time he ran and never hid his political beliefs from his family. “My son and his wife say that since I’m a fan of Trump they’re no fan of mine and cut me off,” he said. “Now I can’t see my only grandchild who I was so close to. It’s crazy and it’s tragic.”
It’s also increasingly common. The 2024 election spatchcocked the nation, widening a rift that was exposed in 2016 and put in an even sharper gulf four years later. Now, the hyper-partisan politics in the shadow of the 2024 election is breaking the bonds of families to a greater extent than ever before.
They want Order. Specifically, an Order where everyone is put on the Proper Rung of Society and Keeps to Their Place. And of course their Place is above X (insert minority group here) because they are Special because of Y (insert ridiculous circular reasoning—usually racist—here).
These people literally believe that if Society becomes Unordered, it will collapse. And of course the only ones who can maintain that Order are the Great and Glorious White Men. The proof is that all the richest, most powerful people are White Men! (Any rich, powerful person who isn’t White and Male obviously got there through DEI action or cheating somehow.)
Innuendo Studios has a pretty good video on this in his Alt-Right Playbook series.
Yes, and my favorite example of metaphorically watching the same movie, but seeing a different story is the phrase, “law and order.” Plenty of us see the word Order and think of civil order, of happy communities of people going about their business without danger or conflict. The right and alt-right hear Order as social hierarchy. Black Lives Matter is a threat to Order just by existing, as Black people trying to move up to a higher rung on the social ladder than they belong on.
Similarly, we hear Law as rules that everybody follows to ensure peaceful coexistence (order). They hear Law as in “the law,” as in the exercise of power by authorities, either to maintain the hierarchy (the old right) or just 'cuz it’s fun to hurt people (the alt-right).