All that's left of the Republican party ...

[paulkienitz]

26. They don't want to be ruled by an autocrat, but they do want autocracy

if that's what it takes to retain privilege and patriarchy. They see the end of democracy as a better alternative than letting a long-term majority of minorities and progressives govern in a way that doesn't respect their historical advantages. They feel the loss of control in their own lives and instead of connecting it to lowering wages and wall street greed, they link it to better treatment of women and minorities, thinking that the wrong people are getting things that should be rightfully theirs.

But of course they never spell that out to themselves, because everything to do with privilege and prejudice in this country is constantly wrapped in doublethink and self-deception. They get constantly fooled and duped because they are constantly fooling and duping themselves with rationalizations to tell themselves they're not bigots.

Also, most of them are evangelical, and have spent their entire lives forcing themselves to believe myths and fairy tales instead of evidence. Anyone who can piggy-back on the type of religious authority to which they have granted power over their belief systems, can exploit it to get them to swallow political myths and fairy tales too. They don't need evidence, they only need the stories to reinforce their sense of cultural identity in the same way that religious fundamentalism does.