The Commons: ‘Trumpism Is the Last Gasp of a Dying Culture of White Supremacy’

LaFrance is correct to identify universal access to guns, a fragmented media environment, and the refusal of extreme MAGA Republicans to accept defeat in elections as new challenges to America’s social fabric. But these factors exist in the wider context of a shift in the racial and ethnic composition of the United States—and thus a shift in the country’s power relations. The best point of reference for understanding the rise of violence in the U.S. today is not the anarchist movement or Italy’s Years of Lead, but rather the much deeper crisis of the Civil War and Reconstruction. In this historic transformation, the balance of power between races shifted, and the country witnessed violence far worse than what we face today.