Somebody asked me today: "How can anyone vote for Donald Trump and think this is America at its best?" What follows is a thread where I want to focus on an important distinction: the psychology of wanting to be the best and the psychology of wanting to be TREATED as the best.

I cannot emphasize this enough: wanting to be the best and wanting to be treated as the best are two completely different mindsets, especially when in the case of the latter, there is absolutely no rational justification for any purported superlative quality.

Genuinely wanting to be the best entails identifying your vulnerabilities and where you need to put in the work. It takes diligence, patience, practice, a willingness to learn. It requires a persistent desire to overcome. It requires honest introspection.

Just wanting to be TREATED like the best? That entails a truly horrid energy. It entails precisely the opposite psychology: you look away from where you are vulnerable or where you need to put in any work. You convince yourself of your own infallibility.

When you are fixated on just wanting to be treated like the best, especially when you are not, that will bring out all the worst possible qualities. Instead of a willingness to learn, there is arrogance. Instead of patience, there is a restless and unstable sense of entitlement.

When you are fixated on wanting to be treated like the best, you greet criticism with hostility. And you have a temperamental proclivity to actively avoid seeing yourself in others outside of those you consider the best people.

So when you ask "How can anyone vote for Donald Trump and think this is America at its best?", it's because America at its best for Donald Trump's base is where they are treated as the best people. And yes, that has everything to do with the nature of white supremacy.

White supremacy appeals to white people because it supplies them with a sociopolitical order where they are treated as the apex of America, and Trump and his base's conduct throughout this viral pandemic has been horrible because all they care about is not losing that feeling.

Again, people have speculated: "Had Donald Trump just squashed this viral pandemic at the onset, his re-election chances would be much better! Why didn't he do just that?" Because that takes the energy of actually wanting to be the best. Donald Trump and his base don't have that.

The central priority of Donald Trump's white supremacist base is having a society organized around them being viewed as the best. When we tell them to wear a mask or that Donald Trump botched a viral pandemic response, all they see us as doing is ruining their mass delusion.

The fact that Donald Trump is more of a president for his base than he is a president for all Americans, his base sees as a plus. After enduring a Black president who was a president for all Americans, they wanted a president only for themselves. For the "best" people.

So to reiterate, there is a HUGE psychological distinction between wanting to be the best and feeling entitled to being viewed as the best. Donald Trump and his base only care about the latter. And it is worth the ongoing mass death. It's worth the Republic and rule of law.

I've been in the midst of reading @Isabelwilkerson's "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents", so I must credit her for this framing: Donald Trump's base exhibits the mentality of a caste utterly convinced of its apex status and utterly devoted to maintaining it.

To Trump's base, that's what is on the ballot in November: the integrity of their high-status caste. That's it. That's all they care about. The fact that Donald Trump's policies over four more years would create a permanent underclass is not a turn off. It's the point.

Trump's base harbors their notions of who belongs in a caste that they can look down on, and they see Donald Trump as the best vessel for seeing their ideal caste system come to fruition. There is nothing bigots are more obsessed with than ensuring everyone knows "their place."

That's why Donald Trump's base is still with them. He's their ideal standard bearer for who should be treated as the best. And if you're in the club, being the "best" grants you societal permission to act like the absolute fucking WORST to everyone outside the club.