If we don’t understand who President (for the moment) Donald Trump is, and if we can’t explain his followers well, then we’ll remain a step behind, confounded and ineffective. Yes, they’re the Sedition Party, hoping to overturn democracy, but what unites them? As Freud might ask, what do they really want? It’s about power. That’s all. The rest is just pretty wrapping paper.

Start with political descriptions for the Trumpian movement. I’ve heard “right-wing,” “alt-right,” “far-right,” “extremists,” the anodyne “Republican base,” and more. That’s odd, mostly because they’re not conservative at all. Trump’s people don’t hold to any conservative values that Edmund Burke might recognize. Smaller government, free markets, prudence, a true moral order, and all the rest are non-starters. Yes, they pretend when it’s convenient but switch sides when it isn’t. That’s not how a belief works.

Many people try characterizations from a different direction: “Racist,” “Sexist,” “White Nationalist,” and the slide down to “KKK,” “neo-Nazi,” und so weiter. My recent favorite was “White male chauvinists” which may be the closest I’ve seen so far. Each one of those characterizations holds a part of the truth. Trump’s actions are racist in thought and deed, and his people love him for it. Trumpians all seem to drink from the same bottle of testosterone.

And behind Trump stands the Republican Party, tall and… OK, well, short and dumpy. They’re almost as toxically masculine as Trump, but less important. I know the Republican Criminal Enterprise puffs themselves up. (Mitch as the Grim Reaper? Really?) They’re just Trump’s wholly-captured subsidiary, not leaders. They didn’t bother writing a party platform!

I have to backtrack. This wasn’t Trump. Spineless weasels stole the leadership decades ago. Trump moved in, but he’s just squatting in the engine Republican apparatchiks built long ago. The Republican Party of Trump now unblushingly accepts the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, the Aryan Nations, Patriot Prayer, and really any White Nationalist. They won’t even abjure the KKK, Nazis, or the New Order.

The GOP really does have a big tent. I guess once you’ve let Trump in the door, there’s no pretending you have standards.

But here’s the question: is the Trumpian hate and fear of non-white people a driving principle? If they get that, will they be happy? I don’t think so. It’s only part of what motivates them. Suppose these dweebs and ninnies got their new Race War and somehow won it. They’d just turn on each other.

Here’s another thought experiment. I’m a privileged white male: a college-educated, economically successful, older, cisgender straight-arrow guy who can’t dance to save his soul. I’m right down the middle of “white boy.” If I take my shirt off at the beach, people’s faces melt in the glare. (And all the screaming is just rude.) I’m their guy, right? Not really.

I’m also a liberal goober with long hair who looks like a smart geek someone let loose. I guarantee that none of those groups would trust me, most wouldn’t accept anyone like me into their inner Klan, and at least a few would hate me on sight at fifty paces. Even if someone gave them their all-white, male-dominated society, nobody like me would be welcome in their White Elysian Fields. My (blinding) whiteness wouldn’t save me.

This is about power. Stop papering over it with pretty words you don’t mean. Power is who wins. Power says who gets easy money. Who gets in the good schools? The powerful. Power lets you grab the girls, and they let you get away with it. Want that big house? Grab power and it’s yours. Power means the rules don’t apply. Even if you get caught, you get bail, a trivial sentence, and possibly a pardon if someone more powerful likes you. People with power don’t pay taxes. That makes them smart. Power protects you and even your privileged kids, no matter how thick or clueless.

But, for your power to have real meaning, you need someone beneath you. Power only works when you have someone without power who you can dominate. It’s the little people who pay taxes, get fined, and suffer from laws.

It’s not an accident. The powerful ensure only the weak get sued by the IRS, and only the poor pay bail. The legal system has been essential for smothering the poor in layers of fines and fees. When was the last time someone rich was pulled over for a failed turn signal? The powerful do whatever it takes to strip away wealth because money can change into power. Nobody wants that; nobody important, anyway.

It’s been working for more than a century. We powerful people make sure the powerless live in crappy places with tattered schools and no real prospects of getting free. Watch rich white people lecture us about “Welfare queens!” The powerless live day to day, paycheck to payday lender, living their whole lives with bad risks and stupid choices. And oh my god, they better keep their goddamn heads down, that’s for sure. Don’t mouth off and don’t act up. Whatever else, don’t make the powerful people question themselves or their masculinity. They might string you up.

If you look at the insurrection, that’s what they want. I know it sounds like racism, but it isn’t. Race doesn’t matter. It’s all about power, not politics or policies. All these powerful people think about is who stays in power and who gets stuck scrubbing the floors, paying the bills, and scrubbing your shit off the statues.

It’s been about power for as long as I’ve been watching. Republicans haven’t lived by principles in my entire memory, and I’m old. Trump is naked power embodied. McConnell is naked power. Kevin McCarthy is naked power. The Tea Party was rich guys Astroturfing their own revolution for more power.

I’m more hopeful now than I’ve been in decades. We are recognizing the systemic roots of injustice, even the clueless white guys like me. The moral collapse of Trump’s Republicans feels oddly energizing. We might just make real improvements.

But keep your eye on the ball. Citizens United was a disaster we need to fix. The two-party duopoly needs to break. We should make money less critical and find the wider audience for political performance. Some of us still think it’s all about power. And it is, or it was. But it doesn’t have to be.