(The cost of) a place at the table: homo-authoritarianism and the log cabin Republicans in Trump’s America

Newton, T. P. (2024) (The cost of) a place at the table: homo-authoritarianism and the log cabin Republicans in Trump’s America. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: 10.48683/1926.00119448

Abstract/Summary

LGBT+ conservatism is deeply under-researched; a small handful of articles and even fewer books, compared to veritable libraries’ worth of content on LGBT+ liberalism. Most of these works were completed well before the Trump administration, and the conclusions drawn are typically based on privilege; assuming that LGBT+ conservatives are just voting their pocketbook. But the political landscape in the US is increasingly mainstreaming the far right, and it is prudent to revisit this issue and see how the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), America’s only serious political representation for LGBT+ conservatives, have been swept up in the tide. Previously a fringe organisation, Trump offered LCR a place in the GOP mainstream, including appointing their members to high office. I argue in this thesis that LCR rewarded this by embracing authoritarianism, aligning themselves firmly to Trump and engaging in various discourses on social media that undermined his accountability and demonstrated their loyalty to him. I refer to this concept as ‘Homo-Authoritarianism’, an extension of Jasbir Puar’s (2007, 2013) theory of ‘Homonationalism’. Using critical discourse analysis methods on a sample of 1300 LCR tweets, I argue that the onset of the Trump era has seen the group engage in discourse indicative of authoritarian followers; broad ‘accountability sabotage’ (Glasius, 2018), ‘doublethink’ (Orwell, 1949 [2000]) and populism (Mudde, 2004) (Laclau, 2005) designed to maintain constant ideological alignment to Trump and legitimise him. This is an exchange for political capital and security that ultimately leaves LCR unable to meaningfully oppose discrimination, and complicit in the weakening of Democracy. Furthermore, it may be a model for other far right leaders; enabling them to strengthen their supporter base and engage in discrimination by first aligning certain LGBT+ groups to themselves in such a way that they end up unable to meaningfully critique them, and unwilling to try.

Item Type	Thesis (PhD)
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/119448
Identification Number/DOI	10.48683/1926.00119448
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Politics, Economics and International Relations
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