The intersectionality of hate helps us understand the ideology of Donald Trump and the far right

To fully understand the recent rhetorical strategies of far-right activists and politicians, including former US President Donald Trump, a brand new conceptual tool is required. This is precisely what the concept of “intersectionality of hate” goals to do.

Analysts and students have been talking in regards to the intersectionality of hate for several years, drawing on the concept of intersectionality, which was coined by The African-American law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw to explain a reality that’s characterised by sexism, racism, classism and other categories (there are a complete of about 30).

Crenshaw points out that African-American women have at all times been aware of this complex reality. Mary Church Terrell, a black women's rights activist, declared around 1920 that “a white woman has only one handicap to overcome, that of gender. I have two: gender and race.”

While researching antifeminism and discourses on male victimhood within the context of a so-called crisis of masculinity, I became aware of how the brand new concept of the intersectionality of hate makes it possible to know the intertwining of hateful discourses. The French historian Christine Bard with whom I’m fortunate to workrightly points out that “antifeminism practices intersectionality, but it is the intersectionality of hate” that brings together Sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and homophobia.

This interweaving of hate speech will also be viewed from different perspectives, corresponding to from the attitude of racist and xenophobic or “anti-gender” and transphobic movements.

Conceptual innovation

The popularity of the concept of intersectionality undoubtedly explains the simultaneous emergence of intersectionality of hate on each side of the Atlantic.

The article “How Trump made hate intersectional” appeared within the magazine on November 9, 2016, the day after Trump's election. It was signed by African-American mental Rembert Browne, who explained how the Republican candidate federated voters. “Trump won the presidency by making hate intersectional. He encouraged sexists to also be racists and homophobes while saying disgusting things about immigrants in public and about Jews online.”

Hatred here is mixed with the fear of being stripped of 1's country, institutions and private achievements, and with the anger at not having what one believes one is entitled to simply because one is a heterosexual white man. This attitude is paying homage to that of “Angry white men” that was talked about so much just just a few years ago: it isn’t any longer limited to blaming a single group for real or imagined personal problems, but all minority groups are blamed. In other words, there isn’t any longer a single scapegoat, but an entire herd.

At the identical time in France, Bard, which has shown that antifeminism and lesbianism are intertwined and reinforce one another, analyzed 1,367 articles on women, gender and sexuality published within the right-wing extremist weekly newspaper.

she found that “the intersectionality of hate is being practiced, linking feminism, homosexuality, Islamism and immigrationism”. She notes that political and media figures are attacked particularly intensely in the event that they are women, and likewise in the event that they are of Jewish, Muslim or African origin. The historian concludes that this intersectionality of hate runs counter to any egalitarian or inclusive perspective.

Attacks on progressives

Shortly thereafter, the magazine devoted a brief special report on the intersectionality of hate and links it to the far right, which attacks progressives and accuses them of enforcing their values ​​and defending “minorities.”

In addition to racist and sexist attacks, there are also serious accusations against “Cultural Marxists” (or “wake up”) who supposedly control the state to develop “positive discrimination” programs and influence the education system with the intention to indoctrinate young individuals with “political correctness.”

Each attack is a chance to indicate that the essence of the United States is European, Anglo-Saxon, Christian, heterosexual, capitalist and meritocratic. The attacks also serve to divert attention from the elite that basically dominates the country, namely Multi-billionaires within the White Housein addition to the heads of huge corporations and media.

The intersectionality of hate is spread by influential traditional (Fox News) and web media (Daily Stormer and Daily Wire), by think tanks corresponding to the National Policy Institute and polemicists like Christopher Rufus And Ben Shapiro.

terrorism

The concept of intersectionality of hate is taken up again in the evaluation of hate speech and people related to terrorist attacks. Studying in EuropeIntersectional Hate Speech Online, concludes that “women continue to be the group of people most frequently targeted by intersectional hate speech. […]for example Muslim women, Roma women or women of colour. […] Another target group for intersectional hate speech are women in public positions.”

Europol also mentions the intersectionality of hate in its Report on the situation and trends in terrorismThe agency presents an inventory of attacks motivated by anti-feminism, racism and xenophobia. One example is the attack carried out by Nazi Anders Breivik in Norway in 2011. Breivik claimed in his manifesto that he desired to defend Christian European civilization and massacred 76 young socialists.

Europol also mentions Elliot Rodger, who committed one in all the primary mass murders related to involuntary celibacy in California in 2014 and who also expressed sexist and racist hatred in his manifesto.

“I was against everything,” replied one former French gendarme when the court asked him whether he was homophobic during a trial for planning attacks on multiple targets. The defendant had also written a neo-Nazi manifesto in Breivik's honor.

Other Islamophobic attackers had planned to attack feminists. The one who attacked the mosque in Quebec in 2017 was thinking about feminist groups at Laval Universityand the one who decimated a Muslim family in Ontario in 2021 had explored abortion clinics.

Finally, British journalist Helen Lewis points out in her article, “The Intersectionality of Hate”published in, a few mass murderer who targeted Buffalo's African-American community in 2022 and that his manifesto contained anti-Semitic cartoons.

Victim rhetoric

The intersectionality of hate thus functions through the superposition of comparable analytical frameworks that systematically derive the identical dynamics from reality and at all times result in the identical conclusion: the white heterosexual man is a victim of “minorities” that he must resist.

This rhetoric legitimizes even probably the most obvious abuses, corresponding to the election of Would-be dictator for a day Trump or the enforcement of 1's own view of things through terrorist violence.

The intersectionality of hate can also be directed against progressives and reflects the refusal to acknowledge that the “majority” of white heterosexual men is in truth a minority whose Claim to superiority and even dominanceis seriously contested within the name of social justice.