One of the attributes that makes Trump unique is his ability to fuse swagger and whining in his messaging to his base. What it reminds me of, more than anything else, is the attitude of the beaten Confederates after the Civil War. They felt oppressed because they had been unfairly, as they saw it, deprived of their right to oppress others. They justified their use of violence against blacks by referring to their status as victims, and the self-evident righteousness of their cause.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It isn’t a coincidence that the Confederacy represents a large slice of Trumpland. Reactionaries in 2022 aren’t that different from reactionaries in 1880.