State control of the kind we've seen during the lockdowns has historically been associated with nonwhites and the extent to which some white American… - Jamelle Bouie

Arguably the most prominent and accomplished of these planter-politicians was John Calhoun...On this defense of the prerogatives of the Southern section of the nation, Calhoun built an entire theory of government. Seeing the threat democracy posed to slavery, he set out to limit democracy...The problem, in Calhoun's eyes, was that the will of the majority, as expressed in the House of Representatives and the election of the president, had too much power. It had to be curbed, lest it overrun this "true and perfect voice of the people." And those "people" whose voices must be heard, of course, were those like him. Those with power. Those with property. Those who enslaved others.

And Trumpism, as the iconography of his movement demonstrates, has race at its core. Trump began his march to the White House as the chief proponent of the "birther" conspiracy, arguing relentlessly that the country's first Black president was foreign-born and therefore illegitimate. His appeal as a presidential candidate was to white Americans who believed that their racial identity and the country's national identity were one and the same.

There is a homegrown ideology of reaction in the United States, inextricably tied to our system of slavery. And while that ideology no longer carries the explicit racism of the past, the basic framework remains: fear of rival political majorities; of demographic "replacement"; of a government that threatens privilege and hierarchy.