By shedding the detritus of race-based nationalism, today’s insurgents have harnessed the power of white innocence.
By Joe Lowndes
The deep chasm in American political culture continues to open, and to generate irreconcilable positions on everything from climate change to Covid-19 to critical race theory. The intensity of this divide is driven largely by the zeal of the right and its appetite to remake the polity in its image, leaving Democrats and liberals as defenders of the American political system.
Nowhere is this clearer than the January 6 insurgency and the meanings made of it seven months later. A recent Quinnipiac poll held that 84 percent of Democrats consider the events of that day to be “an attack on democracy that should never be forgotten,” while other polls show that Republican use of such terms as “patriotism” and “defense of freedom” to describe it continue to gain popularity.
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