Opinion | Trump is out of the White House, but the angry mob he speaks for is still out there

There are legitimate grievances behind the seemingly outlandish words, actions and beliefs of the Trump supporters who laid siege to the Capitol

Whether in the US or Hong Kong, stalled mobility, inequality and distrust of government have serious consequences

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Trump supporters including Jacob Anthony Chansley (centre), a QAnon supporter, enter the Capitol in Washington on January 6. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:15am, 25 Jan 2021Updated: 5:30am, 25 Jan 2021

Don’t write off Donald Trump’s parting words as US president that he “will be back in some form”. They are – unlike his tweets and outbursts over the past four years – true. What he brought to Washington is here to stay: the voice of the disgruntled, disenfranchised and angry. And that’s why his vow to “always fight for you” is telling.

That “you” has a new face: it is the painted face of a shirtless man wearing horns, a bearskin headdress and tan trousers, while armed with a long spear wrapped in the American flag, and howling. It is the face of Jacob Anthony Chansley, a Trump supporter and self-proclaimed “QAnon Shaman” who has been charged in connection with his role in the storming of the US Capitol.

If reports are to be believed, Chansley has lived a life out of a really bad Hollywood movie. The 33-year-old Arizona man was kicked out of the navy after two years, tried acting, and now lives with his mother. He is unemployed, and a prominent follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.

America’s disenchantment and anger has been decades and generations in the making. These are the people whose stories Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild spent five years collecting, understanding and finally telling in Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, published in 2016.

Ever since Trump’s election, people have been trying to understand how it happened, and are still trying to come to terms with it.

The four tumultuous years that Trump was in office, and the almost daily assaults on common sense and decency, fuelled the passion of those who so desperately need alternative narratives to explain all their discontent, and support their disbelief and distrust of science and government. All of that combined into radicalisation and finally led to the siege of Capitol Hill.

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