The vigilante president

From the New Republic:

...If Trump were a more Machiavellian operator, rather than an egomaniacal, narcissistic, and deeply incompetent one, American democracy might already be doomed. 

But even if Trump is nothing more than a racist with a penchant for showmanship, who happened to be emotionally attuned to the true concerns of the Republican base, what happens with the president’s most militant supporters when he screams “COUP!” as he’s escorted from the White House?

What happens when his supporters, who, true to his claims, are numerous in law enforcement and the military, decide to act in “defense” of democracy and their polarized-reality understanding of what the legitimate state authority is? 

It’s an especially fraught question given that, for many of them this moment goes beyond politics and ideology—it is existential. Trump’s blurring of reality and conspiracy, of what is legitimate and what is not, cannot be separated from the context of his support: white fears of being replaced. 

A steady stream of research has dispelled the media myth that Trumpism was somehow about economic anxiety. As academics such as Michael Tesler were already documenting before Trump’s victory in 2016, Trump’s support is an expression of the rise of white identity politics. 

The appeal of this politics goes well beyond the working class and even draws in many white millennials. The evidence shows that racial resentment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and belief in white vulnerability (the perception that whites are losing ground to other groups), not economic hardship, are what correlate the most closely with voting for Trump. 

Trump enjoys cult-like support among roughly a core 25 percent of the American population because people who strongly identify as white become more likely to support him when they are told that nonwhite groups will outnumber whites in America as soon as 2042...