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The American president condemned the group of protesters who marched down a street in Columbus, Ohio, dressed in black and waving flags with red swastikas emblazoned on them. The angry group shouted racial epithets through their red face masks and videoed their progress as they paraded past quaint businesses that billed themselves as a woman-owned sportswear shop, an upscale hair salon selling sustainable beauty products and another one advertising deluxe denim.
The protest was small. Barely a dozen people were loud-mouthing their hate. It was nothing like the deadly Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville in 2017, when an estimated 1,000 marchers holding tiki torches aloft proclaimed, “You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!”
But in some ways, the Columbus display was almost as bad. What it lacked in size and formal organization, it made up for in casual privilege. The display wasn’t out in the middle of a corn field, nor was it surrounded by security. The hate was just moseying along right there in the midst of middle America’s yoga pants, organic smoothies and acai bowls.
“President Joe Biden abhors the hateful poison of Nazism, Antisemitism, and racism - which are hostile to everything the United States stands for, including protecting the dignity of all our citizens and the freedom to worship,” read the statement from the White House. “Hate directed against any of us is a threat to every single one of us.”
This must be said because this is where we are. Again and still.
A straight White man’s fear and fragility can be both dangerous and powerful; there is ample American history to support that assertion. So can his anger and disaffection, as well as his greed and belief in the righteousness of his authority. His hurt and anxieties have been foundational to our public policies and who they lift up, who they beat down and who they aim to completely eliminate. His despair transforms into hate. And that changes a country.
All those emotions can be parsed and analyzed through the lens of the country’s politics and the man who’ll sit in the Oval Office come January and the sort of people with whom he will surround himself. So far, Donald Trump has indicated that he would like to fill his team with no small number of men - Peter Hegseth, Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - who have been accused of sexual misconduct: assault, sex trafficking, sex with a minor. Such alleged behavior, such disdain for the bodily autonomy of women, is no longer disqualifying for revered jobs in public service. In the eyes of Trump - who has been found guilty of sexual abuse - it might well be seen as evidence of the sort of brutish, toxic, masculine self-regard that he emulates and admires.
In this moment of limbo, as an outgoing president gamely condemns the vitriol and an incoming one brings with him a history of ginning it up, the hate is free-floating. It hasn’t yet been tethered to some new governmental proposal. It hasn’t morphed into fresh law or doctrine. It’s just out there drifting from one community to another, from a neighborhood school to a quiet cul-de-sac to a sea of mobile phones. To anyone and everyone.
Anonymous and detached. Speculative hate.
In the days after the election, Black people, including students, were texted alerts that they had been selected to pick cotton at a designated plantation and should prepare to be met by a van that would deliver them to their enslavement. Latino residents were sent text messages telling them they should expect to be deported and that agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would corral them up at a particular date and time. And people who identify as LBGTQ+ were told they’d be rounded up and taken to reeducation camps, a prospect that seemed to be a reference to conversion therapy, the debunked practice of trying to psychoanalyze someone from gay to straight.
Investigators haven’t determined who sent these text messages, whether they were disseminated by some foreign cyber intruder or whether they were coming from inside the house. But in some ways it doesn’t really matter, because the contents of the messages weren’t unfamiliar and therefore the idea that someone would blast them out anonymously wasn’t all that shocking. All these sentiments have been part of the public conversation — and not from some loner living off the grid but from a presidential candidate, an aspiring public servant and a convention hall full of Republican revelers hoisting signs that read, “Mass deportation. Now.”
The text messages don’t reflect inconceivable sentiments. They’re a reminder of history that isn’t that long past and a stark future that is quite possible. They reflect how petrified the people who have long dominated the top of the social and economic food chain are about being nudged from their lofty perch, or simply being asked to scoot over a little bit and make room for others. They underscore the terrible things that fear - desperation, loss and aggrievement - can lead people to do.
Everyone moves through life with a certain amount of beneficent fear. But who isn’t terrified of a demographic free fall? How could one not be? The country is not known for providing folks who’ve lost their grip or had a misstep with a soft landing. Demoralizing, blinding uncertainty can manifest as hate-filled protesters wandering through a neighborhood. Or text messages of vitriol masquerading as public policy.
In this in-between moment, plenty of people are holding on for dear life and hoping for a change of fortune. Some are simply doing so with unbreakable courage.
Robin Givhan is senior critic-at-large for The Washington Post writing about politics, race and the arts. A 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism, Givhan has also worked at Newsweek/Daily Beast, Vogue magazine and the Detroit Free Press.
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