David Brooks: The GOP Is Getting Worse

The “far right” always wanted the normie to wake up.

There are countless radicals who became frustrated and who gave up when the normie didn’t wake up on their schedule. This includes an entire branch of the White Nationalist movement which ideologically convinced itself that White people were hopelessly apathetic and would never wake up.

Over the past year though, there has been a big change in White America and specifically in Donald Trump’s base in the Republican Party. The George Floyd riots and the rollout of the systematic racism theory appears to be the moment when at least those people woke up. Millions of people watched Black Lives Matter and Antifa mobs tearing down statues and burning down cities and spineless politicians caving to them. Corporate America and the media came out and endorsed that insurrection. These people also watched Big Tech deplatform the president of the United States from the internet.

Do you remember your reaction to watching the George Floyd riots? What was your impression of the “racial justice” movement? Did watching all of that inspire you to eradicate “white supremacy”?

New York Times:

“Those of us who had hoped America would calm down when we no longer had Donald Trump spewing poison from the Oval Office have been sadly disabused. There are increasing signs that the Trumpian base is radicalizing. My Republican friends report vicious divisions in their churches and families. Republican politicians who don’t toe the Trump line are speaking of death threats and menacing verbal attacks.

It’s as if the Trump base felt some security when their man was at the top, and that’s now gone. Maybe Trump was the restraining force. …

The first important survey data to understand this moment is the one pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson discussed with my colleague Ezra Klein. When asked in late January if politics is more about “enacting good public policy” or “ensuring the survival of the country as we know it,” 51 percent of Trump Republicans said survival; only 19 percent said policy.

The level of Republican pessimism is off the charts. A February Economist-YouGov poll asked Americans which statement is closest to their view: “It’s a big, beautiful world, mostly full of good people, and we must find a way to embrace each other and not allow ourselves to become isolated” or “Our lives are threatened by terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants, and our priority should be to protect ourselves.”

Over 75 percent of Biden voters chose “a big, beautiful world.” Two-thirds of Trump voters chose “our lives are threatened.” …”

It took long enough.

These people are finally coming around though. They perceived an existential threat to their way of life. In that moment, they realized what their future as White people was really going to be like.

The political establishment sees you as their racial enemy because you are a cishet White male or female. You are the White oppressor. You collectively, systematically, institutionally and structurally murdered George Floyd with your racism. We are all “complicit” in the death of George Floyd and Ma’Khia Bryant. It is all of our fault. We are all guilty. We all must be punished for it and pay the price.

Everything about White America must be demonized and wiped out. There can’t be a single statue or trace of the past left standing. Whether it is Aunt Jemima or referring to Mr. Potato Head as a sir, it all must go. We can no longer celebrate “European architecture” or “Anglo-Saxon institutions.” We can no longer afford to have Freeze Peach. White people have contributed nothing of value to this country because Ibram X. Kendi has said that America has been convicted of systematic racism.

Are we really the “extremists”? Do Republicans really need “to draw a bright line” between themselves and the “illiberal” extremists? What exactly were the “extremists” wrong about? Were they wrong about open borders and demographic replacement? Were they wrong about cultural degeneration? Were they wrong about political correctness? Were they wrong about “antiracism” and America’s future? Were they wrong about the rising tide of anti-White hatred in this country from the political establishment?

In the Joe Biden presidency, our message is now simply that we have been vindicated by the political establishment. They really do explicitly hate White people. They really do want to erase our heritage and degenerate our culture and youth. They really do want to trample on your rights. They’ve used everything from mob violence and intimidation to censorship to economic blackmail to impeachment to racial demonization to weaponizing the intelligence agencies to repress their political opposition.

We’re the “fascists” and “authoritarians” though. We ridicule them on the internet with memes. They use the FBI against their political enemies.