You’ve no doubt mused at some point why the logic of “If we all just got vaccinated, the pandemic would be over. We wouldn’t have to wear masks anymore!” didn’t work with Trump’s base. For starters, you’re projecting your rational desire to see the pandemic end onto them.
The most important thing to Trump’s base is not ending the pandemic. The most important thing is ensuring the pandemic cannot be used as a pretext to alter the rules of society, and this is based on an awareness of who COVID-19 significantly affects. The moment that it was understood that COVID-19 disproportionately affects communities of color, the immunocompromised, and other vulnerable populations, Donald Trump’s base decided that the viral pandemic was acceptable.
Donald Trump himself best channeled how his base views the pandemic when he said this: “if you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.” From Adam Serwer’s book “The Cruelty is the Point.”
Donald Trump did not see himself as being under an obligation to act as a President for all Americans, and his base was with him that regard. In him, they saw their own desire to ignore the issue if they perceived it was just Democrats being significantly impacted.
Obviously, wanting to conceive of the pandemic as a Democratic problem is not rational. But this calculation to not take the pandemic seriously was not being made with rational considerations in mind. It was made with notions of caste in mind.
The reality: Donald Trump’s base has a sense of occupying the dominant caste, they want to think of COVID-19 as a lower caste issue, and the dominant caste being forced to go out of its way to protect people perceived as lower in caste is a supreme violation of caste rules.
All subsequent discussion of how caste intersects with the pandemic will be based on this summary of the temperament of dominant caste behavior from Isabel Wilkerson’s book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”
These two paragraphs make no mention of the viral pandemic, and yet I contend that they contain everything you need to explain the behavior of Donald Trump’s base throughout the viral pandemic.
Bear in mind the priorities of the dominant caste as you read ahead: to see itself as most correct. To refuse instruction from people outside of it. To ensure it has the power to put people in their places. To deny shared basic human experiences with anyone perceived as lower.
When the pandemic started taking off, the most heated debate was over having to wear masks. Why was there a debate? See this through the lens of caste: the dominant caste was being told to wear masks to protect themselves and potentially people outside of their caste. But according to caste rules, the dominant caste does not get told what to do. Not when it comes to protecting themselves, and most *definitely* not when it comes to protecting people perceived as beneath their station.
You’ve been rationally approaching the pandemic as a threat to your health & to the health of the people you care about. Trump’s base has approached the pandemic with a paranoid suspicion that the pandemic will be used as a pretext to upset a caste order that privileges them. For if those perceived as occupying the dominant caste are forced to go out of their way to protect people perceived as being outside of it, then their sense of dominance is a lie and their humiliation as seen through the lens of caste is complete.
We’ve also had debates over social distancing measures, suspending large indoor events, temporarily closing down indoor dining, etc. to control the spread of the virus. Why did Donald Trump’s base freak out when these were proposed?
See this through the lens of caste: the dominant caste, viewing itself as the zenith of society, is the one endowed with the power to put people in their places. To decide where people can go. Nobody is allowed to usurp this power from the dominant caste for any reason. What you see as rational measures to control the spread of the virus, they see as people outside the dominant caste attempting to seize their sense of power with respect to being able to put other people in their place.
Donald Trump recklessly holding rallies throughout the viral pandemic was precisely what they wanted. Because it was about reasserting the power that comes with being in the dominant caste: you can go where you want, do what you want, and behave how you want without consequences.
Their sense of identity is tied to being able to impose upon others and celebrating invulnerability from being imposed upon. That is why they view everyone who is laser-focused on following measures to reduce the spread of the virus as beneath their station.
When they speak of “freedom”, they speak of the “freedom” to not bear any responsibility in controlling the spread of the virus. Any responsibility to act better. The virus is beneath them. Therefore, the people who care about the virus are automatically viewed as beneath them. …
Furthermore, the dominant caste will immediately find the idea that people among other castes have the correct strategy for dealing with COVID-19 to be absurd. To view yourself as a member of the dominant caste is to view yourself as unassailable in knowing what should be done. …
Not acknowledging shared human experiences is the entire point of caste. Not acknowledging shared vulnerabilities is the entire point of caste. Because shared vulnerability ruins the entire point of feeling invincible, unassailable, compared to other human beings.
So let’s name the precise reason the pandemic has played out as it has: it’s because a society that responds to the viral pandemic with an earnest desire to protect the most vulnerable is a threat to caste, and that alarmed Trump’s base way more than the threat of the virus.
That’s the calculation Trump supporters made, and you know what it ultimately means: they chose caste over their own lives. They chose caste over the lives of their own children. They chose caste over your lives and the lives of your own children.
So that’s it. No more wondering what’s ultimately driving the behavior of Trump’s base during the viral pandemic. Their behavior during the pandemic is completely synonymous with their behavior before the pandemic. They are upholding America's caste system: white male supremacy.
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