I've noticed a tendency among certain factions of the left to imagine that because there are valid grievances to be had regarding capitalism & the ruling class in the US, that these grievances are what animates the far right. The problem w/ this assessment is that it's wrong. 1/

Growing inequality is an example. On the left, we see it as a problem. On the right, it's evidence of the system working. If you actually *ask* Tr*mp supporters about it, you will discover that it's not the inequality itself that they want to end... 2/

What they want to end is being made to feel bad or guilty about supporting systems that exacerbate the inequality. They don't want to end poverty, they want to end *visible* poverty by criminalizing it. 3/

Projecting our own grievances into the minds of Tr*mp supporters is comforting bc it creates the illusion that our differences can be healed with policy that addresses those grievances. 4/

The real problem is far deeper. It's a battle of competing epistemologies: a belief system that rationalizes inequality by imagining some ppl as more entitled to the basic means of survival than others vs. the notion that there could be a better way to organize society. 5/

The "better way" notion is deeply threatening to those who identify strongly with bootstrap ideology and/or are strongly motivated to rationalize their own comparative comfort.

Much of the violence we are seeing is this defensiveness being weaponized. 6/

Compounding the problem is the fact that liberalism often enables the far right bc at the end of the day, both ideological frameworks are concerned with maintaining the status quo / justifying the current system of property relations. 7/

A lot of liberals (especially white liberals) are less threatened by the far right than they are by the various factions of the left, which they perceive as coming for their wealth and/or trying to dismantle the systems they use to enforce property relations. 8/

You can see this in the softball reporting & both-sidesing over the last 4 years, which only ended when Tr*mpism became a threat to stability & their own bottom line. 9/

The myth of Tr*mp supporters as predominantly "working class" has, of course, been thoroughly debunked.

On the contrary: The New York Times doing a "mood check" with Tr*mp supporters on the eve of the inauguration is an instance of class solidarity as much as anything. 10/

It's frustrating to see "leftists" keep falling into the same lazy analysis one expects from the NYT. Yes, Democrats are overwhelmingly capitalists & imperialists. But that's not why Tr*mp supporters hate them. 11/

They hate them bc they are even more terrified of the prospect of a redistribution of wealth than the Democrats are. 12/12