[consteval]

> often rooted in distrust of the official narrative

I disagree from what I've seen.

I hear a lot of crazy conspiracies from Trump followers where I live. Including from my family.

On one hand they, they have a distrust for the establishment. But on the other they're dangerously close to fascists. I mean, Trump is a monarch to them. They don't trust the DOJ. Or the house. Or the senate. Or any of the agencies. But they trust Trump. If he says they're eating cats and dogs, then that's what they're doing.

It's very odd to be both in this "anti-establishment" headspace but also basically endorse and ask for a fascist government where one King makes all the rules. And you just trust him and have absolute loyalty.

That is to say, I don't think "distrust the gov" is the end of the discussion. There's more to it.

[krapp]

One of the elephants in the room, I think, is the religious dimension to the divide. Trumpists don't mistrust government per se, they mistrust secular government, but tend to approve of government that espouses and enforces traditional Christian ideology. They mistrust secular science because they believe it contradicts the Bible. Their opposition to LGBTQ people is rooted in a binary view of sex and gender based on Christian doctrine.

Even the "rural vs urban divide" people talk about is really a divide between Christianity, as expressed in "traditional values" and secularism. "Left" and "right" is "atheism" versus "faith," respectively. Communism and socialism are hated primarily because they're seen as anti-religion, and this extends to a hatred of leftism, liberalism, progressivism, etc as all similarly demonic in nature.

Aspects of this fundamental struggle between theology and secularism go all the way back to Reagan, at least, and I even believe back to the founding fathers. If you look deep enough into any of the systemic issues in American culture, you'll probably find religion somewhere at the heart of them.

The apparent contradiction between being anti-establishment but pro Trump (to the point of neo-fascism) makes sense in this context. Trumpists consider the establishment to be Satanic, and they believe Trump will replace it with a Christian theocratic order. And even a cursory glance at the Bible will tell you that the Kingdom of God is not even remotely a democracy.