Mixed Identity Politics?
Cycling in southern Virginia recently, I noticed a large flag mounted on a 20-foot pole in someone’s front yard—with a conflicted message. The flag, as it turned out, had an identity issue: one side was the conventional Stars and Stripes U.S national flag; the other side was the “Southern Cross” of the Confederate flag (I assume it must have been two flags sewn together; I wasn’t about to stop and ask.) Homes with the two flags displayed separately are not unusual. But this two-faced flag combination captured the mixed identity of those who declare they are patriots, but who owe allegiance to something that is not quite the United States as conceived by the rest of us.
The more common two separate flags in the yard speak loudly for a tribe that has stood for white supremacy* and deep suspicion of the federal government, while also declaring their patriotism. That’s the perversely named “nativist” tribe, by which is meant, not affinity with actual native Americans, but quite the reverse: it’s rather an affinity with white people who invaded from Europe, slaughtered most of the indigenous folks and drove them off their lands. Let’s call the newly arisen nativists “neo nativists.” (Not to be confused with the same psychological term applied to cognitive development.)
The neo-nativists form the core of the Trump “base.” (Here I wish to distinguish the core from other, less intensely loyal members of the base, who might actually turn against Trump should he, to use his memorable scenario, randomly shoot some person in Times Square. The core, on the other hand, would always find some justification, although if the victim happened to be a gay black person, they might not even see a need to justify it.)
They (of the core) are of white European ancestry, mainly Christian in name if not in deed,* firearms zealots, anti-LGBTQ bigots, are filled with fierce distrust of the federal government, and are instilled with the belief that true Americans are all pretty much like them—and the immigration of enough people UNLIKE them will destroy our country.
Those throughout much of the South embrace a contradiction between what the two flags represent—on one hand the flag (Stars and Stripes) of the UNITED states, and on the other, the flag of a rebellion against the very same United States.
The unusual flag that I saw may have been an attempt to dissolve that contradiction: to say, yes, we still hold fast to the heritage of the South, but we have reconciled ourselves to the legitimacy of the Union and the freedom of non-Whites. We do not stand apart.
That’s a charitable interpretation of that flag; a more sinister meaning could be, white supremacy is part and parcel of our country.
That there are neo-nativists outside of the South, bereft of Confederate flags, does not undermine the principle that they all celebrate a past where Whites were on top—it’s just that the Southern brethren have a convenient and traditional way to celebrate it.
Rage of the Conquered
Whites in the South (I speak as one born and bred in the Northeast) have a special grudge that may explain clinging to a deeply tarnished past symbolized by the Confederate flag: they lost the Civil War. The South didn’t just lose, it was conquered, occupied, and subjugated to conditions which were often punitive and humiliating—and Southerners had little say in their implementation. The physical damage from the war was colossal. The deeper wound was psychic. Buildings, roads, and railroads can be rebuilt, but the spear of absolute defeat was lodged deep in the soul of many southerners, and called up a vengeful rage among many of them.
Much of that rage became directed at those least able to defend themselves: African-Americans. Free blacks were a constant reminder of a world turned upside-down by the war, and their past plight had been the cause of it. A sharp goad to assertions of white supremacy was the constant, conspicuous presence of people who represented its negation. That negation had been brought about by forces—the Union’s military might—against which a struggle had failed utterly.
There are signs that the racial component of the South’s opposition to the federal government is waning. See discussion below.
Hatred from the threatened – South showing tolerance
The association between hate groups and white supremacist groups is close enough, that it’s safe to say the incidence of the first can serve as a proxy for the incidence of the second. If so, a study of the two has found the prevalence of white supremacist groups is not concentrated in the southern U.S. Take a gander at this article that makes use of the study and its accompanying maps: Distribution of hate groups in the U.S.
It’s a rough yardstick, but nevertheless it conveys a picture at odds with assumptions that racism linked with white supremacy is most intense in the southeastern U.S. While the study points to several correlations, the overall takeway is, there are hate/white supremacy groups scattered throughout the nation. The Deep South, while slightly above the norm, is not the simmering hotbed of white supremacy many liberals (like myself, from the Northeast) might assume.
As I’m seeing it, the most salient thread, geographically and independently of other characteristics such as education, is that hate and white supremacist groups are typically concentrated in places least populated by non-whites. They are, in general, conservative white bastions where non-whites are unusual and unfamiliar—not the case in the Deep South. (It is the case in Vermont, where, startlingly, hate groups have a strong presence.) It’s the perceived threat, not the reality, of non-whites that incites fear and hate.
This undermines the notion of the Deep South as an especially hospitable harbor for white supremacists. Whether it supports the claim often repeated by some southern whites, that the Confederate flag stands for “heritage not hate,” is another question.
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* There’s a segment of Christians who believe that the U.S. does not have a responsibility to house refugees. To that segment belong 68 percent of white evangelicals—another 25 percent of them believe that it does. (Happily, the white evangelicals that I know fall within the kindly 25 percent.) By contrast, 51 percent of Americans overall believe that the U.S. does have the responsibility to house refugees, versus 43 percent do not. The highest level of support for housing refugees is among the religiously unaffiliated—65 percent. See:
Report on Pew research regarding refugee acceptance