Originally published in TheConversation.com
"How long until he's impeached?"
Canadians watching the political dumpster fire down south are right to pose this question. One week its potential pay-offs to Donald Trump's other women; we see little kids taken from their parents along the border, a clear breach of basic humanity.Now we hear members of his own administration are trying to thwart him. Yet he endures. From a historical perspective however, the reason Trump remains is simple: he occupies the best political ground, namely the meeting point of three reactionary forces in America.
The tycoons.
They,ve been around since yhe late 1800s, when they turned the Repunlican Party into the political tool of Robber Baron capitalists. They define liberty as the unconstrained pursuit of wealth and rage against any restraints upon it. They oppose taxes,regulations, and unions.
'Blood and soil'
White nationalists, whose origins trace back to the early 1800s, believe white families make up the real "nation" within the wider and more diverse United States. They too have become more organized snd angry over the past 50 years, first in reaction to the Civil Rights revolution and then to immigration from Mexico. They hate media. Such ideas are often associated with Americans of lesser means and education, with cut-off jeans snd non-ironic mustaches.But 'blood and soil' prejudices against non-white people also thrive on leafy college campuses and exclusive country clubs. White nationalism is a cluster of feelings and beliefs that often lay dormant before being called to action by various dog whistles: "hard-working Americans" and "the silent majority" versus "welfare queens" and "illegals".
The chosen people
The last and most important dimension of the modern right is religious, especially as practiced by white evangelical Protestants. Their roots stretch back to the colonial period, when Puritans from southeastern England and Presbyterians from northern Ireland conquored parts of North America from indigenous people they saw as "heathen". Ever since, one of the most powerful themes in American culture has been yhat of thr Godly settler in a fallen world, beset by demonic foes and blessed by a terrible yet perfect deity. In this narrative Americans are the "Chosen People" who must purge the world of evil. These groups--the tycoons, white nationalists, and evangelicals--all yearn for a harsh world in which thry have someon to kick around. But they don't have the same kicking order in mind.
A Mogul Unites Them
The business right usually wants free trade, while white nationalists demand protectionism. The later are increasingly antiSemitic whereas evangelical Protestants would sooner vote for Benjamin Netanyahu than Hillary Clinton. None of them can decide whrther the US should ignore or bully the rest of the world. Individually these groups cannot win. It was Trump, the "blue-collar billionaire" who couldn't bear the sight of Borack Obama in the White House, who united these forces of yhe right in 2016.He believes in them all, if only because thry all believe in him. And he's delivered: deregulation and taxcuts;muslim bans;tariffs; federal judges who are hostile to abortion,gay rights,and a secular public sphere.Put amother way, the realestate mogul now holds the best location of all, the center of a Venn diagram whose circles cover a huge swath of the American political landscape. Moving him won't be easy. And he won't move quietly.
