The Specter of Lost Status

When you're used to a privilege, equal treatment feels like oppression.

It's a very natural human response.

For evolutionary reasons, we humans are obsessed with our status relative to others in any given group. And perceived reductions in our statuses often cause psychological discomfort.

Even losing a sports contest - where nothing other than bragging rights are at stake - can make us feel shitty. It's the perceived reduction in status that's the rub.

To put it another way, none of us like being stripped of any advantage that we enjoy over others. Whether that advantage is real or imagined.

It's part of why rich people freak out when circumstances force them to wait in line like everyone else.

It's part of why many conservatives view same sex marriage, not as an expression of equality, but as an *attack* on traditional marriage.

And it's part of why the MAGA crowd exists in a near perpetual state of self-righteous grievance.

They're correctly perceiving that truly equal treatment for all citizens means that no one group is entitled to better treatment than any other group.

That societal shift has begun (exemplified, for example, by Obama's election in 2008.) MAGA folks ain't happy about it.

Rage at that perceived loss of status is the fuel that sustains trumpism. trumpism is the bigoted clapback.

White, christian culture will eventually lose its perch atop America's social hierarchy. (assuming human civilization lasts that long, of course. which is a tremendous assumption.)

It'll eventually be just one among many legitimate, equally regarded cultures. No one can turn back the clock on social progress.

At least not for long.