Phoebe Cohen
Tue, December 21, 2021
“Look out for the trigger words,” the woman says. She’s perched on a chair in front of the room. She’s well-dressed yet funky with elegant boots, a demure sweater and some colorful jewelry. “‘Equality,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion,’ ‘marginalization,’... These words are CRT. If you see these words in your kids’ homework, you need to speak out.”
I am in a meeting held by a local right-wing mom’s group. It’s an organization catering to mothers who are bent on protesting at school board meetings to stop the supposedly evil critical race theory agenda from being taught in public schools and address other typically conservative concerns.
Critical race theory is not currently being taught in public schools.
There are about 20 of us. We are all maskless, all (apparently) white, mostly women and all on the younger side. I’m in my early 40s and I seem to be the oldest person in the room. A group of children, including my son, the only one in a mask, are scampering merrily in a play area down the hall while a young woman with a baby in her front carrier keeps an eye on them. On the wall by the door of our seminar room is a sign. It says: “Children should be: Heard. Respected. Encouraged. Loved. Appreciated. Guided with Compassion. Given Freedom to Learn Without Coercion.”
What exactly that last phrase means is ominously vague.
For several years now I have been worried about the increasing right-wing views that I have noticed in my demographic (white suburban women). Before 2016, I always thought of Nazis as mainly historical villains that belonged in Indiana Jones movies or old news reels or the sad stories my grandfather told me. Now, however, as the last Holocaust survivors are dying, I am aware that fascism is creeping back into the world at large in terrifying ways.
I wanted to know how I could fight against the appallingly stupid yet dangerously widespread disinformation that is entrancing many of my friends and neighbors. Basic facts about COVID-19 are being dismissed by whole states as part of the “liberal mainstream corporate media.” Bodies from COVID victims were stacking up in ICUs and filling the morgues back in 2020, yet I was still called a “child abuser” by people on the street because I made my son wear a mask. Why are people going nuts? Why are people dismissing science and history in favor of conspiracy theories? And, most importantly, how could we nudge the nation in a saner direction?
I was especially curious about activist groups that specifically target suburban women. These groups seemed intent on making life more dangerous for my child. According to my local right-wing women’s group, masks should not be allowed in school. They told us to stop worrying about kids dying of COVID. They were also vocal about not wanting racism and its deep, formative history in the United States to be taught. Some of these people literally do not believe white privilege exists because, according to them, the Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War were overwhelmingly white. (No, I don’t understand that argument either.) Others feel parts of our country’s history shouldn’t be included in curriculums if it makes people ― namely white people ― uncomfortable.
Every teacher I knew was struggling with COVID restrictions and dealing with students venting their post-pandemic trauma through increasingly disruptive behavior. School districts across the country were dealing with staffing shortages due to teachers burning out from stress. Why add to teachers’ difficulties by threatening school instructors who dared to teach topics like Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement and the repercussions of slavery in America?
Some of these people literally do not believe white privilege exists because, according to them, the Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War were overwhelmingly white. (No, I don’t understand that argument either.)
To learn more, I joined a local right-wing Facebook group for moms. It’s a private group that requires aspiring members to answer some questions before they’re granted entry. One question was “Why do you want to join?” I replied, “I want to be more involved with my kids’ school.” A week passed and then a moderator for the group contacted me privately. “Can you be more specific about what issue most concerns you?”
Yikes. Security was apparently very tight with this group. They weren’t going to let just any mom glide in using a few generic answers.
“I’m mostly interested in issues that involve keeping kids physically in school,” I messaged back. “Zoom school was devastating for my kid and I don’t want that to happen again.” I wasn’t lying about any of that. It’s one of the few opinions I share with many conservative parents.
The moderator sent me a thumbs-up emoji and let me into the group.
Once inside, I found the members were all stripes of Republican and I was pleasantly surprised to see opinion was not monolithic in the group. Several moms argued against the more far-right posters. One woman posted an objection to children reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” in class. “Divisive Concepts,” she wrote with a broken heart emoji. Underneath was a screenshot of a direct message from someone who appeared to be a student that read, “I’m in English right now. We’re currently reading ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ There’s a part where Calpurnia brings the kids to church with her and another black woman is being extremely racist towards Scout and Jem. My teacher was saying it was not racism because white people have a higher power over black people in society and that black people can’t be racist.”
There were several indignant emoji reactions in response to this post. One mom, however, pushed back. “Well,” she commented, “the woman at the church complained that Calpurnia had brought white children to the Black church, possibly one of the few places Black people felt any sense of freedom and safety. It’s a little absurd to call the woman racist, given the context.” This comment got a couple “likes” and no pushback.
Another surprise I found in the Facebook group was that some huge media outlets were giving them a platform. One of the founders of the group posted that she had done an interview with The New York Times as part of a story on parental rights.
The New York Times! I was dumbfounded. None of the women who ran the pro-Democrat “Indivisible” groups in my town had even managed to get an interview with the local paper!
I scanned the comments and my eyes nearly popped out of my head.
“It’ll be fine,” another mom wrote after the initial poster expressed concern about The New York Times possibly misquoting her. “It’s a lesson I learned the hard way after the BBC screwed me.”
The BBC! The BBC was talking to these women?
I had to know more.
Unfortunately a few of the moms may have become suspicious of me. Perhaps I had “liked” too many comments by moms pushing back against the anti-CRT posts. Perhaps some moderators had found the very liberal comments that I had posted on other public news articles. In any case, when I expressed interest in joining an in-person roundtable discussion event, I saw that the location of the event suddenly disappeared. I messaged the group moderator about the event location.
“Just a heads up,” she messaged back, “I think most people will not be masking. Is that something you’ll be comfortable with?”
I wondered if she was trying to frighten me off. “Yes, that’s fine,” I replied.
I never received the location, but luckily I had written it down before it disappeared from the event post.
I drove to the meeting with my son. The group moderator had been right. When I joined the meeting, I saw that nobody in the packed room was masked. I gritted my teeth and sat down anyway. I was fully vaccinated and my son wore a mask. He was the only one.
I listened to the speakers at the meeting while they discussed how to run for, campaign and pressure school boards. Many parents bemoaned how they had to pull their kids from public schools over mask mandates and instead enroll them in private schools. It was a common story. I got the impression that most of these families had income levels that allowed them to pay thousands in private school fees because they wanted to take a stand on masks. I was probably the poorest person there.
There was a lot of anger directed at teachers. “Rat out these teachers,” one mother instructed. “Find a lawyer who can challenge these teachers.” Another woman disdainfully noted that teachers “don’t even know what they’re doing half the time. They just pull it off the internet.” A third woman said, “There is no discipline for teachers outside of taking away their credentials.” The battle lines were clearly drawn.
I raised my hand. “What do you say to people who are like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna put bounties on teachers’ heads. You’re marching outside of school board members’ homes with guns. School board members are getting death threats and feeling terrorized’?”
I could see several women visibly flinch at the word “bounty.” One woman said she disliked the term “bounty” but she could see the need for “monetary compensation” for those who turn in teachers that were doing things parents found unacceptable. “There are no repercussions for teachers who break the law,” she said. “If we have to offer monetary compensation for people to report teachers, I see no problem with that. It’s an incentive for people to wake up.”
It wasn’t clear what laws these teachers were supposedly breaking. As far as I could tell, teachers ― like everyone else ― got punished if they broke laws.
Another woman raised her hand. “Look, I know we want to change school boards,” she said, “but elections aren’t until 2023. What do we do until then? We just can’t sit around and let them attack our kids. We have to do SOMETHING.”
I caught a gleam in the woman’s eye I didn’t like. Was there some flirtation with insurrection being suggested here? What, exactly, was she saying?
Another woman nodded. “Listen, we’ve tried playing nice. But they just dig in their heels and dig in their heels. We have to start being not so nice.”
One woman said she disliked the term 'bounty' but she could see the need for 'monetary compensation' for those who turn in teachers that were doing things parents found unacceptable. ... 'If we have to offer monetary compensation for people to report teachers, I see no problem with that. It’s an incentive for people to wake up.'
I didn’t like where the discussion was going. The moderator guided the topic back to safer ground. “Be pleasantly persistent,” she smiled. “Be annoying. Be the woman at the school board meetings who always shows up. Be the person who, when the meeting organizers see you, say, ‘Oh, God, her again.’ Be that person. And please try to get people to vote in municipal elections.”
Fair enough. A lot of the roundtable debate felt like a Republican version of a Run for Something meeting. Run for Something was a movement started after Donald Trump won the presidency that was meant to encourage young progressives to start their own campaigns for local political office. This right-wing women’s group seemed to be following the same model, but there was an undercurrent of rage among the group members that I had never seen in a Run for Something meeting.
Despite my uneasiness, I couldn’t help but find myself liking the women in the room. They were charismatic. They were energetic. They had no problem letting my low-functioning autistic son play with their children, which is unfortunately rare among a lot of the other mothers I’ve encountered. But this made me even more uneasy. I realized these women were dangerous precisely because they were so friendly. Their condemnation of history lessons about Ruby Bridges and Jim Crow laws and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was repulsive. They were trying to suppress the truth by labeling the unassailable facts of racism in the U.S. as “divisive.” “Equality,” “diversity” and “inclusion” were not virtues to be celebrated but “trigger words” with a poisonous intent. This nefariously clever bit of relabeling disgusted me. There was a very clear far-right agenda at work here.
Groups like the one I joined often appeal to mothers. The pandemic has hit moms especially hard. Lack of child care has resulted in a “she-cession” with thousands of women leaving the workforce to take care of their children. Lonely, frustrated, financially stressed people tend to be prime targets for radical groups. These right-wing women’s groups offer a sense of community and friendship to women who are isolated at home with their kids. It can be frighteningly easy for some people to start nodding along with all the rhetoric about the evils of critical race theory and COVID conspiracy theories if the women espousing them are also offering you coffee and friendship and child care ― and making you feel seen and heard.
I am currently still a member of this local right-wing women’s Facebook group. It has helped me to understand where these people are coming from ― and just how motivated they are. My membership could end up being rescinded, however, as I plan to attend a few upcoming school board meetings to defend the accurate and honest teaching of all parts of American history, especially in regard to racism and what it has meant and means to be Black in this country.
I can’t stop thinking about the gleam in that woman’s eye as she said, “We just can’t sit around and let them attack our kids. We have to do something.” Though some people think merely tweeting our outrage or frustration is productive (it’s not), those of us fighting against the far right need to be more aware of how energetic and organized they’re becoming and the lengths they’re willing to go to in order to get their way. Right-wing activists are attending school board meetings in hopes of transforming our children’s education, and, ultimately, their lives and the future of the United States. It’s time for us to be just as active to ensure this doesn’t happen. We must fight for our children’s safety and their right to learn our nation’s history ― even the ugly parts. Especially the ugly parts.
After all, when ugly history gets ignored, it tends to get repeated.
Phoebe Cohen has walked many paths in life, including living in the Gobi Desert as a Peace Corps volunteer and working as a paramedic in several states. Cohen’s work has been featured in Graphic Medicine, Mutha Magazine and BorderX. She regularly posts on her website Merry Misandrist. Cohen is a part-time cartoonist, writer and nursing student. She has been known to go up to five hours without coffee.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
I Embedded With Trump-Supporting 'Stop The Steal' Protesters. Here's What I Learned.
"I wanted to get as close as I could to find out how these individuals view themselves and the world they are fighting for."
Megan Kang, Guest Writer
01/19/2021
A placard reading "Stop the steal" is seen during a protest after media announced that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had won the election.
GORAN TOMASEVIC/REUTERS
The intersection is unremarkable on most days. It sits at the cross of two major thoroughfares in a suburban town in Florida. It’s located on the edge of a large parking lot in a strip mall with a Starbucks, Supercuts, Publix grocery store, FedEx, and some local businesses.
But each Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, this intersection transforms into a political battleground. Since July, a group of Republicans have gathered there with signs supporting Donald Trump, flags, music, and attire. The demonstrators are met with honking, waving, swearing, flicking off, fist pumping, and occasionally, they get into shouting matches with the drivers passing by. Months after the presidential election resulted in a victory for Joe Biden in November 2020, this group of demonstrators continues to show up every Saturday in support of Trump and his claims that the election was stolen from him.
Their efforts are a part of a larger social movement known as “Stop the Steal,” which swept the country in the final months of 2020. It became one of the fastest growing groups on Facebook in early November, amassing 320,000 users in its first 22 hours before Facebook shut it down for trying to incite violence. Despite this, the slogan caught on like wildfire as testimonials alleging voter fraud made their way across social media and onto right-wing sites. The message was fueled by President Trump himself, who claimed the election was stolen on Twitter and official White House platforms. As of early December, one poll found that three out of four registered Republicans said they did not trust the 2020 election outcomes. By that time, “Stop the Steal” demonstrations were taking place on the steps of state capitols, outside of elected officials’ homes, and on local street intersections. On Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress met to certify the Electoral College votes, “Stop the Steal” followers and other Trump supporters staged an armed insurrection at the country’s Capitol. As a result of the attack, five people died and many more were injured. Footage of rioters destroying parts of the building, sitting inside the Senate chambers, and defacing legislators’ offices offered a shocking display of how far the movement had come.
In effort to try to understand those who are sympathetic to Trump’s efforts to undo the election results, I decided to join them. As a sociology graduate student, my lessons in ethnography have taught me to unravel problems by standing in or near other people’s shoes in the hope of explaining something seemingly inexplicable. Unlike those who study people’s beliefs or behaviors without this context, ethnographers try to capture people within their natural setting by participating in their lives. This is how I found myself spending my last four Saturday mornings at this intersection alongside these protesters. I wanted to get as close as I could to observe and learn how these individuals view themselves and the world they were fighting for, as well as uncover more about their beliefs and motivations.
I was nervous about whether I would be able to gain entree into their group and how I might be treated. How would these people react to a 20-something Asian woman who found herself spending an extended winter break in their town asking to join their ranks? How would these white and Hispanic middle-aged to elderly Floridians decked out in MAGA hats, bright red, white and blue apparel, and carrying pro-Trump signs feel about a California native who has spent her adult years living in bastions of progressivism like Berkeley, Detroit, Chicago and Princeton?
I would also be wearing a mask among a group that believed COVID-19 mask mandates were the ultimate symbol of government overreach. Each time I joined the protesters, I was one of two people out of 15-20 wearing a mask. The other mask-wearer was Susie, a white woman in her 60s. She was soft-spoken and always carried a little red megaphone slung over her shoulder (though I never saw her use it). She was known for her shirts and flags decorated with provocative statements. Her favorite T-shirt read, “Socialism shits on the faces of soldiers who died for our freedom.”
Shortly after her arrival each Saturday morning, Susie taped up signs on nearby surfaces, including a laminated sign with a Chinese flag with an image of Biden’s face that she posted on an electric switch box at the center of the intersection. During my first Saturday morning at the intersection, she noticed that I didn’t have a flag or sign and offered her Trump Train flag to me. I respectfully declined but appreciated the gesture.
Jake is a white man in his mid-50s with a white-collar job who wore the same navy blue Ron Paul shirt each time I saw him. He brought a portable speaker to blast a diverse playlist ranging from the 1990s radio hit “C’mon N’ Ride It (The Train)” to the more recent YouTube hit “God Bless Trump and the USA.” When I asked him how he selected songs for these events, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “I go on YouTube and find whatever I like. Just for Trump alone this year, there’s probably been 20 different songs made for him, which is pretty nice.”
Jake was the first person to introduce himself to me when I arrived at the intersection over a month ago. I noticed that he and Connor, another member of the group, always made a point of saying hello to new people. They served an essential role in creating a sense of solidarity among the group of strangers brought together by their loyalty to Trump, and they also eased my worries about whether I’d be accepted into the group.
I explained to Jake that I had passed by the group a few days earlier and wanted to learn more about their cause. He asked if I wanted to join the protesters’ WhatsApp chat group and told me about other upcoming events. I accepted the invitation and learned that some of these demonstrators, including Jake and Connor, planned to trek north to attend the big “Stop the Steal” protest in D.C. planned on Jan. 6.
Jake had a long list of talking points that he read in an authoritative voice into his microphone, which was connected to portable speakers. His favorite topics were criticizing mainstream media, describing how Biden would ruin this country, and citing all the ways in which the election was stolen from President Trump.
“Every single thing points to a Donald Trump landslide,” his voice boomed. “Statistics show that Donald Trump won. You’re not going to hear any of this on the mainstream media. Guys, the truth is most of the people driving by that are pro-Biden or anti-President Trump are very surface thinkers, they’re very directed by the mass media. They don’t have any clue about some of the things I mentioned today.”
Distrust in mainstream media was a central theme in the conversations I had with the demonstrators. Madeline is an elderly white woman who enjoyed sharing a wide array of opinions and bits of information on current events. She was a lifelong Democrat until Obama’s second term when he became, in her eyes, too lenient on “terrorists and illegal immigrants.” Now, Madeline gets most of her news from YouTube, which she believes is more reliable than mainstream news platforms because you can see things “firsthand.”
When Trump entered the scene, Madeline says she found a candidate who was able to put words to her worries about the direction America was heading. “Trump said it as it is,” she told me. She has been participating in the flag waving demonstrations at the intersection since July and believed this was the least she could do to “protect Americans’ freedom.”
When I asked Madeline which rights she felt would be most threatened under a Biden administration, she said she was worried Americans would be forced to wear masks, get vaccinated, and that small businesses would be shut down.
Connor is in his 60s, works a white-collar day job and spends his time off helping to coordinate the demonstrations at the intersection and trying to increase membership in the county’s Republican group. He also turned his back on the mainstream media. When I asked him why he had showed up at the intersection every Saturday for the last five months, he told me, “I’m a Trump supporter. I’m not going to give up. I do believe [the Democrats] cheated like hell, and I don’t know how people can’t see that. But when somebody hates someone, it overtakes them. And that’s what happened here. The news media hates him and then a lot of people just go along with the program.”
Connor’s loyalty to Trump was central to how he processed information. He told me that anything that was critical of Trump was the same as being biased against Trump. For example, Connor’s main source of news for most of his life had been the Wall Street Journal. But when the publication began publishing articles critical of Trump during his campaign in 2015, Connor unsubscribed and moved to other news sources that he felt were fairer to Trump. Now, Connor gets most of his news from OAN (a far-right pro-Trump cable channel known for promoting conspiracy theories) and Epoch Times.
Connor believes that Trump is an antidote to the radical left, which he says increasingly dominates the mainstream media and the nation’s universities. “A lot of what we have is an educational system that has told people, ‘You’re white and you come from this background and these other people didn’t have that opportunity so we should give up something and we should feel guilty,’” he told me. “Then students think, ‘Maybe you’re right, you’re the college professor and my parents are sending me to go to school here.’ The communication is manipulative. And that’s how we have all these bleeding hearts who want to guilt white people, take their money, and give it to Black people. Now you have a generation of lazy, in debt, college graduates who work at Starbucks but still have a $1,000 iPhone and want Bernie Sanders to forgive all their debt.”
In addition to the misinformation they believed and their allegiance to Trump that brought them together, the camaraderie and pride they shared also kept these individuals coming back to the intersection each week. “Trump supporters know how to have a good time!” Madeline told me. “Once we had five ladies in wheelchairs here. We were all having so much fun.” Each time a car honked in support of the protesters, everyone raised their flags a bit higher, smiles appeared, and a feeling of unity swept over the group. Even I found myself returning smiles to those who honked and waved at me and I felt the elation that my compatriots felt beside me. It was contagious.
During the month I spent with these demonstrators, I learned that the “Stop the Steal” movement is comprised of individuals who are deeply misinformed by lies spread by President Trump and others. Each person had their own reason for being there. Jake believed he was helping to inform people about the truth of what is really happening in the United States. Madeline saw attending the “Stop the Steal” protests as a civic duty to defend Americans’ freedom. Connor felt compelled to fight what he believed to be the full-frontal assault of President Trump that is being waged “by the establishment.” When I asked him what the long-term strategy for the demonstrations was, he told me, “When Trump says it’s over, there’s a good chance we’ll stop.”
When I began this project, my partner asked me, “Is there a chance that writing about the perspectives of this group might validate their views? Don’t you think there are some perspectives that we shouldn’t be empathetic to?” I continued to grapple with these questions over the past month and I still am even as I write this now.
One answer that I gravitate toward comes from Arlie Hochschild, the Berkeley sociologist who published a book based on her interviews with Tea Party supporters in Louisiana in 2015. Hochschild suggests that to address the major issues of our day ― from protecting the environment to ending homelessness ― we need to understand those who oppose the state’s role in these efforts. This requires what Hochschild describes as scaling an “empathy wall” to try to grasp the stories of people who are different from us.
It’s unclear what the outcome of the “Stop the Steal” movement will be, or what stage it’s currently at. It is clear, however, that the kind of thinking that motivated “Stop the Steal” has moved beyond the realm of mere rhetoric and into very real and dangerous action.
In light of the events of Jan. 6, Hochschild’s vision of social progress may seem more like an idealistic plea rather than a serious blueprint for change. Still, it is precisely these moments in which violence and destruction occur ― and further threats of both loom ― that developing a clear-eyed understanding of the ideas that inspire and fuel them is most important.
When engaging in a process of understanding, we should be open to the likelihood that the ideas that emerge will seem deplorable to us. In these instances, it’s especially important to remember that it is the ideas ― and the mediums that transmit them ― that we must concentrate on. That certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t hold these individuals accountable for their actions but, ultimately, if we hope to change them, we must be able to reach them. And that can only happen if we understand their motivations and struggles.
At the close of the Second World War, the UNESCO signatories ratified a constitution that opened with, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” Recognizing what the harmful ideas are, where they come from, and why they take such hold is how we will begin to construct the best defenses against them. It is through this sort of understanding that we may hopefully begin to dismantle the destructive narratives and construct a new one together.
Note: All names of individuals described in this essay have been changed.
Megan Kang is a Sociology Ph.D. student at Princeton. Her work aims to make sense of issues around crime and criminal justice by providing a perspective that’s hard to access through conventional data. Follow her on Twitter at @kang_megan.
"I wanted to get as close as I could to find out how these individuals view themselves and the world they are fighting for."
Megan Kang, Guest Writer
01/19/2021
A placard reading "Stop the steal" is seen during a protest after media announced that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had won the election.
GORAN TOMASEVIC/REUTERS
The intersection is unremarkable on most days. It sits at the cross of two major thoroughfares in a suburban town in Florida. It’s located on the edge of a large parking lot in a strip mall with a Starbucks, Supercuts, Publix grocery store, FedEx, and some local businesses.
But each Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, this intersection transforms into a political battleground. Since July, a group of Republicans have gathered there with signs supporting Donald Trump, flags, music, and attire. The demonstrators are met with honking, waving, swearing, flicking off, fist pumping, and occasionally, they get into shouting matches with the drivers passing by. Months after the presidential election resulted in a victory for Joe Biden in November 2020, this group of demonstrators continues to show up every Saturday in support of Trump and his claims that the election was stolen from him.
Their efforts are a part of a larger social movement known as “Stop the Steal,” which swept the country in the final months of 2020. It became one of the fastest growing groups on Facebook in early November, amassing 320,000 users in its first 22 hours before Facebook shut it down for trying to incite violence. Despite this, the slogan caught on like wildfire as testimonials alleging voter fraud made their way across social media and onto right-wing sites. The message was fueled by President Trump himself, who claimed the election was stolen on Twitter and official White House platforms. As of early December, one poll found that three out of four registered Republicans said they did not trust the 2020 election outcomes. By that time, “Stop the Steal” demonstrations were taking place on the steps of state capitols, outside of elected officials’ homes, and on local street intersections. On Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress met to certify the Electoral College votes, “Stop the Steal” followers and other Trump supporters staged an armed insurrection at the country’s Capitol. As a result of the attack, five people died and many more were injured. Footage of rioters destroying parts of the building, sitting inside the Senate chambers, and defacing legislators’ offices offered a shocking display of how far the movement had come.
In effort to try to understand those who are sympathetic to Trump’s efforts to undo the election results, I decided to join them. As a sociology graduate student, my lessons in ethnography have taught me to unravel problems by standing in or near other people’s shoes in the hope of explaining something seemingly inexplicable. Unlike those who study people’s beliefs or behaviors without this context, ethnographers try to capture people within their natural setting by participating in their lives. This is how I found myself spending my last four Saturday mornings at this intersection alongside these protesters. I wanted to get as close as I could to observe and learn how these individuals view themselves and the world they were fighting for, as well as uncover more about their beliefs and motivations.
I was nervous about whether I would be able to gain entree into their group and how I might be treated. How would these people react to a 20-something Asian woman who found herself spending an extended winter break in their town asking to join their ranks? How would these white and Hispanic middle-aged to elderly Floridians decked out in MAGA hats, bright red, white and blue apparel, and carrying pro-Trump signs feel about a California native who has spent her adult years living in bastions of progressivism like Berkeley, Detroit, Chicago and Princeton?
“I was nervous about whether I would be able to gain entree into their group and how I might be treated. How would these people react to a 20-something Asian woman who found herself spending an extended winter break in their town asking to join their ranks?”
I would also be wearing a mask among a group that believed COVID-19 mask mandates were the ultimate symbol of government overreach. Each time I joined the protesters, I was one of two people out of 15-20 wearing a mask. The other mask-wearer was Susie, a white woman in her 60s. She was soft-spoken and always carried a little red megaphone slung over her shoulder (though I never saw her use it). She was known for her shirts and flags decorated with provocative statements. Her favorite T-shirt read, “Socialism shits on the faces of soldiers who died for our freedom.”
Shortly after her arrival each Saturday morning, Susie taped up signs on nearby surfaces, including a laminated sign with a Chinese flag with an image of Biden’s face that she posted on an electric switch box at the center of the intersection. During my first Saturday morning at the intersection, she noticed that I didn’t have a flag or sign and offered her Trump Train flag to me. I respectfully declined but appreciated the gesture.
Jake is a white man in his mid-50s with a white-collar job who wore the same navy blue Ron Paul shirt each time I saw him. He brought a portable speaker to blast a diverse playlist ranging from the 1990s radio hit “C’mon N’ Ride It (The Train)” to the more recent YouTube hit “God Bless Trump and the USA.” When I asked him how he selected songs for these events, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “I go on YouTube and find whatever I like. Just for Trump alone this year, there’s probably been 20 different songs made for him, which is pretty nice.”
Jake was the first person to introduce himself to me when I arrived at the intersection over a month ago. I noticed that he and Connor, another member of the group, always made a point of saying hello to new people. They served an essential role in creating a sense of solidarity among the group of strangers brought together by their loyalty to Trump, and they also eased my worries about whether I’d be accepted into the group.
I explained to Jake that I had passed by the group a few days earlier and wanted to learn more about their cause. He asked if I wanted to join the protesters’ WhatsApp chat group and told me about other upcoming events. I accepted the invitation and learned that some of these demonstrators, including Jake and Connor, planned to trek north to attend the big “Stop the Steal” protest in D.C. planned on Jan. 6.
Jake had a long list of talking points that he read in an authoritative voice into his microphone, which was connected to portable speakers. His favorite topics were criticizing mainstream media, describing how Biden would ruin this country, and citing all the ways in which the election was stolen from President Trump.
“Every single thing points to a Donald Trump landslide,” his voice boomed. “Statistics show that Donald Trump won. You’re not going to hear any of this on the mainstream media. Guys, the truth is most of the people driving by that are pro-Biden or anti-President Trump are very surface thinkers, they’re very directed by the mass media. They don’t have any clue about some of the things I mentioned today.”
Distrust in mainstream media was a central theme in the conversations I had with the demonstrators. Madeline is an elderly white woman who enjoyed sharing a wide array of opinions and bits of information on current events. She was a lifelong Democrat until Obama’s second term when he became, in her eyes, too lenient on “terrorists and illegal immigrants.” Now, Madeline gets most of her news from YouTube, which she believes is more reliable than mainstream news platforms because you can see things “firsthand.”
When Trump entered the scene, Madeline says she found a candidate who was able to put words to her worries about the direction America was heading. “Trump said it as it is,” she told me. She has been participating in the flag waving demonstrations at the intersection since July and believed this was the least she could do to “protect Americans’ freedom.”
When I asked Madeline which rights she felt would be most threatened under a Biden administration, she said she was worried Americans would be forced to wear masks, get vaccinated, and that small businesses would be shut down.
Connor is in his 60s, works a white-collar day job and spends his time off helping to coordinate the demonstrations at the intersection and trying to increase membership in the county’s Republican group. He also turned his back on the mainstream media. When I asked him why he had showed up at the intersection every Saturday for the last five months, he told me, “I’m a Trump supporter. I’m not going to give up. I do believe [the Democrats] cheated like hell, and I don’t know how people can’t see that. But when somebody hates someone, it overtakes them. And that’s what happened here. The news media hates him and then a lot of people just go along with the program.”
Connor’s loyalty to Trump was central to how he processed information. He told me that anything that was critical of Trump was the same as being biased against Trump. For example, Connor’s main source of news for most of his life had been the Wall Street Journal. But when the publication began publishing articles critical of Trump during his campaign in 2015, Connor unsubscribed and moved to other news sources that he felt were fairer to Trump. Now, Connor gets most of his news from OAN (a far-right pro-Trump cable channel known for promoting conspiracy theories) and Epoch Times.
Connor believes that Trump is an antidote to the radical left, which he says increasingly dominates the mainstream media and the nation’s universities. “A lot of what we have is an educational system that has told people, ‘You’re white and you come from this background and these other people didn’t have that opportunity so we should give up something and we should feel guilty,’” he told me. “Then students think, ‘Maybe you’re right, you’re the college professor and my parents are sending me to go to school here.’ The communication is manipulative. And that’s how we have all these bleeding hearts who want to guilt white people, take their money, and give it to Black people. Now you have a generation of lazy, in debt, college graduates who work at Starbucks but still have a $1,000 iPhone and want Bernie Sanders to forgive all their debt.”
In addition to the misinformation they believed and their allegiance to Trump that brought them together, the camaraderie and pride they shared also kept these individuals coming back to the intersection each week. “Trump supporters know how to have a good time!” Madeline told me. “Once we had five ladies in wheelchairs here. We were all having so much fun.” Each time a car honked in support of the protesters, everyone raised their flags a bit higher, smiles appeared, and a feeling of unity swept over the group. Even I found myself returning smiles to those who honked and waved at me and I felt the elation that my compatriots felt beside me. It was contagious.
“In addition to the misinformation they believed and their allegiance to Trump that brought them together, the camaraderie and pride they shared also kept these individuals coming back to the intersection each week. 'Trump supporters know how to have a good time!' Madeline told me.”
During the month I spent with these demonstrators, I learned that the “Stop the Steal” movement is comprised of individuals who are deeply misinformed by lies spread by President Trump and others. Each person had their own reason for being there. Jake believed he was helping to inform people about the truth of what is really happening in the United States. Madeline saw attending the “Stop the Steal” protests as a civic duty to defend Americans’ freedom. Connor felt compelled to fight what he believed to be the full-frontal assault of President Trump that is being waged “by the establishment.” When I asked him what the long-term strategy for the demonstrations was, he told me, “When Trump says it’s over, there’s a good chance we’ll stop.”
When I began this project, my partner asked me, “Is there a chance that writing about the perspectives of this group might validate their views? Don’t you think there are some perspectives that we shouldn’t be empathetic to?” I continued to grapple with these questions over the past month and I still am even as I write this now.
One answer that I gravitate toward comes from Arlie Hochschild, the Berkeley sociologist who published a book based on her interviews with Tea Party supporters in Louisiana in 2015. Hochschild suggests that to address the major issues of our day ― from protecting the environment to ending homelessness ― we need to understand those who oppose the state’s role in these efforts. This requires what Hochschild describes as scaling an “empathy wall” to try to grasp the stories of people who are different from us.
It’s unclear what the outcome of the “Stop the Steal” movement will be, or what stage it’s currently at. It is clear, however, that the kind of thinking that motivated “Stop the Steal” has moved beyond the realm of mere rhetoric and into very real and dangerous action.
In light of the events of Jan. 6, Hochschild’s vision of social progress may seem more like an idealistic plea rather than a serious blueprint for change. Still, it is precisely these moments in which violence and destruction occur ― and further threats of both loom ― that developing a clear-eyed understanding of the ideas that inspire and fuel them is most important.
When engaging in a process of understanding, we should be open to the likelihood that the ideas that emerge will seem deplorable to us. In these instances, it’s especially important to remember that it is the ideas ― and the mediums that transmit them ― that we must concentrate on. That certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t hold these individuals accountable for their actions but, ultimately, if we hope to change them, we must be able to reach them. And that can only happen if we understand their motivations and struggles.
At the close of the Second World War, the UNESCO signatories ratified a constitution that opened with, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” Recognizing what the harmful ideas are, where they come from, and why they take such hold is how we will begin to construct the best defenses against them. It is through this sort of understanding that we may hopefully begin to dismantle the destructive narratives and construct a new one together.
Note: All names of individuals described in this essay have been changed.
Megan Kang is a Sociology Ph.D. student at Princeton. Her work aims to make sense of issues around crime and criminal justice by providing a perspective that’s hard to access through conventional data. Follow her on Twitter at @kang_megan.
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