Whether the upheaval in the last days, months, and years has surprised you or not, it’s fair to assess that we’ve all been living in a toxic political climate in the United States for quite some time. Offhandedly, in the beginning of the current administration, while discussing the general conservative backlash to Obama’s term in office, I blurted out the theory I outline below, which I have subsequently revisited many times over the last few years. I share it now in an effort to provide a tool; a lens. For me, it’s been useful to attempt to take a ten thousand foot view of what’s been happening in the United States in recent years, even though (of course) the roots of modern power and struggle on this soil go back to the 1400s. The framework below has helped me feel less destabilized by the recent chaos. Perhaps it will help you as well.
First, groundwork. 2045 is not far away. This, as many of us know, is the target year when the United States will no longer be a majority-white nation. Also, let’s take as a given the phenomenon we’ve seen repeat over generations in this country, where proletariat whites have “sided” with the (conservative) white bourgeois. This symbolic, non-reciprocal allegiance has helped these white folks maintain a collective metaphorical foothold over the rest of society’s marginal “others”.
So, now, on the eve of being outnumbered, the grip of a fumbling panic has seized them. The death of their majority hegemonic rule, at least numerically, is imminent. I believe that what we’ve been witnessing in the last few years is, in fact, the stages of grief in a collective process.
The stages of grief are as follows: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Note that grief is not linear, nor is it devoid of recurrence.
Denial has perhaps been the longest-running theme for the white proletariat. Denial and fear has always energized the false-allegiance phenomenon I discuss above. Denial is also likely the most pervasive and insidious of the grief stages; it fuels the simple refusal to engage with one’s privilege, which is endemic in whiteness throughout our national history.
What we witnessed in the capitol in the first days of 2021 was certainly anger, as is every mass shooting, Trump rally, and racist assault by the police. Anger fuels everything from microaggressions, to domestic violence and incels. Every passive aggressive comment is the result of entitlement denied.
Depression, although subconsciously spurred by the fear of impending 2045, is also clearly tied up with globalized late stage capitalism. Our profit-driven, “first world” systems exacerbate the depression phenomenon through the persistent lack of mental (and other) healthcare. The sharp uptick in white men afflicted with “diseases of despair” in the last decades is no coincidence.
The act of bargaining has threaded under all of these phenomena, and I would imagine we’ll see more of it during the Biden presidency. Think structural negotiations. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and any proffered policy “compromises”; all weasley attempts at striking a deal with reality. We would do well to be vigilant about who we make allegiances with as 2045 appears on the horizon.
As the current administration enters its death throes, perhaps we can begin to see a future in which acceptance eclipses the turmoil. I don’t pretend to know when that will happen, but I certainly long for it.
I’m not at all suggesting anyone feel sympathy for the abhorrent behavior we saw at the capitol, but perhaps this framework begins to help us understand what is bubbling in the minds of the average fringe maniac. To me, this tumult reads as mourning. Grief for the imminent death of the last glimmer of dominance, even if it was a fantasy.
Grief is nonsensical; a state where the volume knob is turned down on the rest of the world. Anyone who has experienced loss knows that it makes everything feel foggy and disorienting. This particular grief certainly feels protracted, and there’s a heavy undercurrent of toxic masculinity to it, but the entitlement that has led white people here is the result of generations of reprehensible and institutional violence. Numerically, at least, the future is brighter.