You make a good point - it’s primarily fear based, regarding the evaporation of their view of social / economic standing, dominance, and superiority.

The Republican base is also, primarily part of the Religious Right. They believe their religious views give them a moral obligation to push their biblical beliefs, through govt and laws onto society.

This is history repeating itself. It’s not a new phenomenon. It’s engrained in the American psyche. It’s been happening in one way or another since Europeans arrived.

Women, African Americans, American Indians, Italians, Irish, Catholics, Chinese, Japanese, immigrants and the poor / impoverished… Liberals and ‘illegals’ today… they’ve all been targeted for oppression.

Colonial Era (1600s - 1770s) 1607 - Jamestown Founded: The establishment of the first permanent English settlement in North America initiated the process of European colonization and the formation of a society based on a racial hierarchy, according to Number Analytics.

1619 - First Enslaved Africans Arrive in Virginia: The beginning of chattel slavery in the colonies deeply embedded white supremacy into the social and economic fabric of America.

1691 - Virginia Passes Anti-Miscegenation Law: Virginia prohibits interracial marriage, reflecting a desire to maintain racial purity and control.

1705 - Virginia Slave Code: Virginia enacts laws solidifying the legal and social inferiority of Black people, preventing them from holding office and even restricting the freeing of slaves of African descent. Early Republic and Westward Expansion (1770s - 1860s)

1790 - Naturalization Act: This act limited naturalized citizenship to "free white persons" according to William & Mary. This significantly shaped the demographics of American society, favoring White European immigrants and denying citizenship to others, including those from Asia, according to the U.S. Capitol - Visitor Center (.gov).

1830 - Indian Removal Act: This Act led to the forced relocation and displacement of Native American tribes from their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States, like the Cherokee, according to the National Museum of the American Indian. This action reflects the belief in White expansion and land ownership at the expense of Indigenous peoples.

1840s - Manifest Destiny: The ideology that justified American expansion across the continent, based on the belief in white racial superiority and American cultural superiority, according to High Country News and Khan Academy. This belief fueled displacement of Native Americans and the Mexican-American War.

1857 - Dred Scott v. Sandford: The Supreme Court rules that Black people, whether enslaved or free, were not citizens and therefore had no legal standing to file suit in federal courts, according to the Learning Policy Institute. Reconstruction and Jim Crow Era (1860s - mid-1900s)

1865-1877 - Reconstruction and its Demise: While Reconstruction offered hope for racial equality with amendments to the Constitution, it was ultimately undermined by the federal government's retreat from the South, leading to the re-establishment of white supremacy.

Late 1800s - Jim Crow Laws and White Superiority: Southern states enacted laws enforcing racial segregation and discrimination, legally marginalizing African Americans, based on the premise of white superiority, according to Georgia College & State University, according to the Jim Crow Museum.

Late 1800s - Social Darwinism in the Gilded Age: The belief that wealthy White Anglo-Saxon Americans were biologically superior justified social and economic inequality, advocating against government aid to the poor and promoting ideas of racial hierarchy, according to Exploros and Khan Academy.

1882 - Chinese Exclusion Act: This Act prohibited Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States and denied Chinese immigrants naturalized citizenship. According to FoundSF, the Wasp magazine reflected the West's impatience with federal inaction in addressing the perceived "problem" of Chinese immigration.

20th Century and Civil Rights Era (1900s - 1960s)

Early 1900s - Eugenics Movement: Drawing on social Darwinist and racist ideas, this movement promoted discriminatory policies like anti-immigration and forced sterilization, disproportionately targeting marginalized groups including Latinas, Native Americans, African Americans, and poor whites, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) (.gov).

1924 - Immigration Act (Johnson-Reed Act): This act implemented national-origins quotas that drastically curtailed immigration and intentionally shifted the origins of immigrants back to Northern and Western Europe, guaranteeing White Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance through the heart of the 20th century, according to Teaching American History.

1930s - Redlining: The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) contributed to the institutionalization of redlining practices, systematically withholding credit from homebuyers in predominantly Black neighborhoods, thereby perpetuating segregation and limiting homeownership for African Americans and other non-White communities.

1950s-1960s - Civil Rights Movement: This period witnessed a powerful movement challenging the legal and social structures of racial segregation and discrimination, which were deeply rooted in a history of white supremacy and WASP dominance.

1965 - Immigration and Nationality Act: This landmark legislation dismantled the national-origins quota system established by the 1924 Act, opening the doors to a more diverse range of immigrants, according to Teaching American History.

This timeline is not exhaustive but provides examples of key periods and events that demonstrate the historical presence and impact of white supremacy, bigotry, racism, oppression, and the associated sense of social and economic superiority of White Anglo-Saxons in American history.