Thomas Zimmer
The Right is committed to an idea of America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic.
Inciting a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio is part of that project.
Some thoughts from my new piece:
Thomas Zimmer
Crucially, the Right’s desire to purge is not confined to the national story. They also dream of cleansing the nation from anyone they believe does not belong. For the homeland to be safe for “real Americans,” the enemy within must be purged too. 12/
Thomas Zimmer
The central promise of Trump’s election campaign is to conduct an unprecedented mass deportation of tens of millions. Their plans are not confined to undocumented people, they don’t care about legal status. They aim at radically redrawing the boundaries of the body politic. 13/
Thomas Zimmer
What is happening in Springfield, Ohio is not merely a distraction from the Right’s plutocratic agenda, it’s not just a campaign tactic. This is the manifestation of the Right’s defining political project. And a preview of what is to come if they get back to power. 14/
Thomas Zimmer
The political conflict is shaped by the struggle between two different definitions of America: A credal nation, at least aspirationally committed to egalitarian, pluralistic ideas – vs the conception of America as a land in which wealthy white Christians deserve to dominate. 9/
Thomas Zimmer
This struggle is playing out across politics, society, and culture. It is not a coincidence that the “history wars” have escalated in recent years. America is “a group of people with a shared history,” J.D. Vance declared – but who gets to tell that story? 10/
Thomas Zimmer
The Right is determined to (re-)entrench the prerogative of a white Christian elite to dictate the national story, past and present – and to purge from the curricula, the libraries, the minds of young people anyone and anything daring to object and deviate. 11/
Thomas Zimmer
Two: What, to J.D. Vance, is America? “America is not just an idea,” he declared: “It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.” America is the “homeland,” and those who are bound to it by ancestry and blood decide who gets to belong. 5/
Thomas Zimmer
Three: While Vance reveled in his love for the homeland, he was greeted by delegates waving hundreds of “Mass Deportation Now!” signs. Those were official signs, printed and handed out by the RNC – a message enthusiastically embraced by those on the Convention floor. 6/
Thomas Zimmer
Those three moments captured the Right’s defining project. The “homeland” Vance talked about, that’s “real America.” Hogan’s “real Americans” are those who belong here because of their ties to the land. And they have a right to purge the “homeland”: Mass Deportation Now. 7/
Thomas Zimmer
What we saw at the Republican Convention was a party devoted to an ethno-religious understanding of America as a land defined by white Christian patriarchal dominance – the self-presentation of a political movement committed to blood-and-soil nationalism. 8/
Thomas Zimmer
I wrote about the Right’s defining political project: A blood-and-soil nationalism that is fundamentally incompatible with multiracial, pluralistic democracy. It has come to dominate the Republican Party, and the elevation of J.D. Vance captures this perfectly. 2/
Thomas Zimmer
There is a direct line from J.D. Vance’s “homeland” speech at the Republican Convention – an open embrace of blood-and-soil nationalism – to what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, where Trump and Vance are trying to incite a pogrom. 3/
Thomas Zimmer
Three moments from the Republican Convention.
One: On the final day, Hulk Hogan promised only Trump could “straighten this country out, for all the real Americans.” That was the key theme in Hogan’s speech – “real America.” He repeated the term seven times. 4/
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