SHE'S NOT MUSLIM; IT'S ILHAN WHO SUMS UP TRUMPISM:

In total, the ugliness directed at one congresswoman offers insight into how Trumpist Republicans and their neofascist followers and believers see the world, as well as the type of world they want to force into existence in the near future.

Here are some of their values and beliefs.

Malignant reality. The Republican Party and the right wing more generally live in an alternative conspiracy-theory universe of their own creation. Facts do not matter. The "big lie" (and the many small lies that sustain it) are all that matter.

Support for the violent coup and its underlying ideology. The threats and violent speech by the white right are not "hyperbole." Republicans and other members of the right really do wish harm on Democrats, liberals, progressives, nonwhite people, Muslims and others who they have identified as an enemy Other in American society.

Victimology. Despite all available evidence to the contrary, Republicans and other members of the right wing actually believe that they are the "real" victims in America. They imagine themselves to be persecuted and oppressed by "political correctness." They believe Democrats and liberals are destroying their "traditional" America. They believe that "minorities" and immigrants are "taking their jobs."

Republican leaders have played a key role in the victimology fantasy by telling their followers lies about "cancel culture" and spreading paranoid fictions about "the left," antifa and Black Lives Matter.

Moreover, public opinion and other research has repeatedly shown that even though white people retain control of the country's political, social and economic institutions, a significant percentage of white Americans (including most Trump voters) believe that they, rather than nonwhite people, are the true victims of racism in America.

The eroticization of women's pain and fear. Fascism is a masculine political imaginary that emphasizes violence, "virility" and dominance. This is true of authoritarianism more generally as well. While many men (and women) on the right find Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's intelligence, personal strength, skin color and cultural background threatening (if not repulsive), they are also titillated and excited by her fear because in their minds it reaffirms (white) male dominance and power. This is almost the dynamic of the slasher film as applied to politics.

Victims are responsible for their own suffering. Conservative authoritarians are more likely to believe that people who are victims of assault, abuse or violence somehow deserve their own suffering. If Ocasio-Cortez or other Democrats (or disloyal Republicans) had been injured or killed in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, far too many Republicans would have convinced themselves, consciously or otherwise, that somehow "they had it coming."

Hostile sexism and racism. Social scientists have shown that "hostile sexism" helps to explain Donald Trump's appeal for his voters and followers. White supremacy, racism and racial authoritarianism also strongly predict support for Trump and his movement (as well as for Republicans more generally). By speaking out forcefully about her experiences during the Jan. 6 attack, Ocasio-Cortez violated the norm that women, especially nonwhite women, must be silent in the face of white male authority.

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