As the Donald Trump administration makes Amerikkka “great” “again,” it’s worth remembering my attribution of hierarchically invidious monisms to authoritarian populism in my dissertation. In essence, and in a concept that appears by various names in much of critical theory, hierarchically invidious monisms divide the world into exclusive categories of “good” and “evil.”[1]
It is, as so many have explained, better to be healthy than sick, rich than poor, and so on. Racists think it’s better to be white than of color, sexists think it’s better to be male than female, homophobes think it’s better to be straight than gay or bisexual, transphobes think it’s better to be cis than transgender. And so on. In general hierarchically invidious monism[2] conflates these with moral values of “good” and “evil,” refusing to consider that there are reasons people might be on the wrong side of these binaries that are not the result of their own individual failings.
For instance, in Clairton, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River, children are disproportionately likely to suffer from asthma. Why? Almost certainly, air pollution from the U.S. Steel Clairton Works coke plant there has more than a little to do with it. Rents are cheap there so poor people—often Black people—live there and get sick.
But as the Trump administration rolls back environmental regulation, cuts Medicaid, health agency funding and the social safety net, and imposes policies that effectively declare cis heterosexual white men to be the only important victims of discrimination, there can be no mistaking the whiff that somehow Clairton residents are individually morally to blame for their own illnesses.
I wrote and defended my dissertation in 2015 (graduating early in 2016). As Trump assumed the presidency in his first term, one of his most remarkable accomplishments was that he very nearly unified what I had identified as seven distinct tendencies of conservatism[3] into what we now know as white Christian nationalism, a label I should acknowledge that Jesus would surely disavow.
Jesus, after all, in the foundational narrative of Christianity, sought charity for the poor and healed the sick. Which is quite a long ways from how the Trump administration likely would view the residents of Clairton (if anyone in that administration is even aware that the place exists).
That unity of white Christian nationalism seemed to fray a bit as Trump was running for re-election in 2024 until some stupid kid looking for glory took a shot at him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, not all that far from Clairton. As he was hustled from the podium, Trump raised a fist of defiance; a photograph capturing the moment as blood streamed from his ear somehow made Trump a hero in the eyes of disaffected young men who turned out on election day to vote for him. And it was this, as much as Democrats’ gaslighting on the economy,[4] as much as a disgust with Democrats’ embrace of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as much as a widespread disgust with Democrats who have, on multiple occasions, persuaded me that they prefer to sit in opposition, where they can complain about Republicans without ever actually being expected to accomplish anything, that returned Trump to the presidency with his attempt now in progress to overturn our constitutional oligarchy with an aconstitutional broligarchy.[5]
And with that victory, white Christian nationalism has reunited. Now, more than ever before, the poor, people of color, migrants, women, transgender people, and intellectuals are under attack as the “evil” in a hierarchically invidious monism. It is, of course, despicable, so much so that I often find myself at a loss for words, let alone anything substantive to contribute in this space.
We are now in a world of cowboys and “Indians,” cops and robbers, MAGA and “libtards.” In general, academics will see this all as blatantly self-refuting; our eyes just roll and to the extent we are silent, this should be taken as anything but an endorsement. Our arguments from evidence and reason have no impact whatsoever on the thinking—if we can even call it that—that propels Trump and his admirers. Our unspoken condemnation adds little.
As for historical parallels, I think of witch trials, Nazism, and McCarthyism. All were driven by hysteria. In two of these three cases, the hysteria eventually petered out. Famously, Ed Murrow gets credit (which may not be entirely deserved[6]) for undoing Eugene McCarthy and his anti-“communist” witch hunt. World War II ended the Nazi government in Germany. And as far as I’m aware, witch hunts eventually discredited themselves as they exhausted communities’ supplies of (barely) plausible suspects. In all of these cases, reasonable voices eventually prevailed.
But now, reasonable voices, who epistemologically depend upon reason and evidence, ourselves are under attack, utterly discredited among a large portion of the population right along with our epistemology, placed on the “evil” side of a hierarchically invidious monism. We have no obvious way back except that reality will surely, eventually bite those who deny us and their rationalizations and excuses will surely, eventually fail to persuade.
We cannot know how long that will take. With the Doomsday Clock at 89 seconds to midnight,[7] we might not have time.
[1] David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
[2] Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, Transforming Knowledge, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Temple University, 2005).
[3] David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
[4] Matt Bai, “What Biden did that infuriated people,” Washington Post, November 8, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/08/biden-failure-lost-voters-trust/; Abha Bhattarai and Jeff Stein, “Americans deliver message to Democratic Party: The economy isn’t working,” Washington Post, November 9, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/11/09/democrats-election-economy-inflation-harris-biden/; Eugene Ludwig, “Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong,” Politico, February 11, 2025, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-tricked-strong-economy-00203464
[5] Gil Duran, “How the 'Broligarchs' plan to use Trump,” Nerd Reich, November 25, 2024, https://www.thenerdreich.com/how-thebroligarchs-plan-to-use-trump/; Brooke Harrington, “What the Broligarchs Want From Trump,” Atlantic, November 24, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/broligarchy-elon-musk-trump/680788/; Lynn Parramore, “How to Disguise Racism and Oligarchy: Use Economics,” Evonomics, n.d., https://evonomics.com/how-to-disguise-racism-and-oligarchy-use-the-language-of-economics/
[6] W. Joseph Campbell, “Though CBS legend Edward R. Murrow is given credit, he wasn’t the first muckraking journalist to question Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunts,” Conversation, March 1, 2024, https://theconversation.com/though-cbs-legend-edward-r-murrow-is-given-credit-he-wasnt-the-first-muckraking-journalist-to-question-joseph-mccarthys-communist-witch-hunts-222554
[7] Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight,” January 28, 2025, https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2025-statement/