ALL TRUMPISM IS:

He comprehends his audience all too well. Take the poll released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) measuring the attitudes of "Fox News Republicans"--the 40 percent of party adherents who trust Fox as their primary source of TV news. The survey found that 91 percent oppose the Black Lives Matter movement; 90 percent believe that police killings of blacks are "isolated incidents"; and 58 think that whites are victimized by racial discrimination, compared to 36 percent who think blacks are.

Their animus toward immigration is equally strong. Substantial majorities believe that immigrants consume a disproportionate amount of governmental services, increase crime in local communities, and threaten our cultural and ethnic character. Support for Trump's wall is nearly unanimous (96 percent); two-thirds (66 percent) favor barring refugees from entering the United States; and a majority (53 percent) support separating children from their parents when a family enters the country without permission.

Another key subgroup of the GOP base, white evangelicals, harbors similar attitudes. The poll found that the majority adamantly disbelieve that the legacy of racial discrimination makes it difficult for African Americans to succeed. The head of the PRRI, Robert P. Jones, concludes that Trump arouses white Christians "not despite, but through appeals to white supremacy" based on evoking "powerful fears about the loss of White Christian dominance."

That sense of racial and cultural besiegement pervades the 73 percent of Fox News Republicans who, the survey found, believe that white Christians suffer from "a lot" of societal discrimination--more than double the number who say that blacks do. This religious persecution complex explains the otherwise mystifying ability of evangelicals to conjure a "war on Christmas" from the greeting "happy holidays"--simply because some Americans choose to acknowledge our divergent beliefs.

In sum, the GOP is now the party of white identity. In 2016, Vox reports, Trump carried whites by 54 to 39 percent; in 2020, by 57 to 42 percent (per the raw exit polls). Whites are the only racial group whose majority supported Trump; in both elections, Trump lost overwhelmingly among nonwhite Americans. It has long been apparent that the party cannot indefinitely survive the changing demographics which are making us a multiracial democracy--and which engender such resentment in its electoral base.

That fear of displacement helps explain the profound emotional connection between Trump and Republican voters. Their loyalty is not to the political philosophy traditionally embraced by the GOP, but a visceral sense of racial, religious, and cultural identity--and the need to preserve it--which is instinctively authoritarian and anti-democratic.

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