Zero Sum Game

It’s the Core of the Republican Party

Fear isn’t just lurking around the Republican Party like background static—it’s the beating heart that keeps the whole machine humming. It pulses through speeches, fuels slogans, and vibrates across talk radio at 3 a.m.

Scratch the surface of conservative politics these days, and you won’t just find arguments about tax rates or the Constitution. You’ll find a raw fear that the world has shifted—and that someone else is now grabbing the seat they always assumed was theirs.

Psychologists call it status fear. It’s the creeping anxiety that the old social pecking order is dissolving. That white Americans—especially white men—are no longer the center of the story. That their language, traditions, and ways of living have been quietly demoted from “normal” to “problematic.”

Sociologist Arlie Hochschild, in Strangers in Their Own Land, calls it “the deep story.” The sense that other people—immigrants, minorities, women—are cutting the line for the American Dream. It’s not just about money. It’s about dignity, respect, and the suspicion that the game has been rigged against you.

Political psychologist Karen Stenner found folks wired for authoritarianism don’t panic only when their paychecks shrink. They panic when they feel the rules of society are shifting under their feet. Diversity, gender fluidity, new cultural norms—it all sounds like chaos to people who crave order. As Stenner puts it, “authoritarian predispositions are activated by normative threat.” Translation: change freaks them out.

And fear comes in flavors—a sampler platter of dread:

• Economic fear. The gnawing anxiety that jobs are evaporating while billionaires plan their rocket rides to Mars, leaving the rest of us gasping for air through wildfire smoke. Political scientist Diana Mutz showed in 2018 that it wasn’t economic hardship driving Trump voters so much as fear of losing status in the social hierarchy.
• Demographic fear. Looking around and realizing America no longer looks like a Norman Rockwell painting—and suspecting your face might not be the default anymore. William Frey at Brookings keeps warning that the country is headed for a majority-minority future, and for many conservatives, that statistic lands like a threat.
• Cultural fear. The feeling that the old rules about family, gender, and respect have vanished—and nobody left a Post-it note. Sociologists like Robert Wuthnow have shown how shifts in attitudes toward LGBTQ rights, gender roles, and religion can feel like a personal attack.
• Moral fear. The conviction that the country’s gone godless, filthy, and corrupt—even while clocking in for church on Sunday and checking porn stats on Monday.
• Security fear. Seeing caravans at the border, violent cities, or terrorists lurking behind every shrub. Lilliana Mason’s research shows that real or exaggerated threats push people deeper into tribal identities.
• Institutional fear. The suspicion that government, media, scientists, and universities are all run by smug elites plotting to erase “real Americans.” Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum document how conspiracy theories thrive where trust has already rotted away.

Identity fear. Wondering who you even are anymore—and whether anyone sees you or gives a damn.

All those fears don’t stay in separate boxes. They fuse into tribalism. Lilliana Mason’s research found that Republicans have become more racially and religiously homogeneous than Democrats. When that happens, politics stops feeling like a debate and starts feeling like a cage match between “us” and “them.”

That’s why Republican politics often sounds like the world is ending. Historian Rick Perlstein has tracked how conservative leaders, from Goldwater to Reagan to Trump, have always played the fear card. It's still the same script: America is under assault. The country’s going soft. The enemy is inside the gates. Trump just cranked the volume and aimed it straight at personal status and cultural resentment.

Not every Republican voter fits that mold. Plenty are in it for tax cuts or habit or because Democrats remind them of their ex-wife. But enough run on fear that political scientists keep writing papers trying to figure them out.

And here’s the asymmetry: Republicans are way more tribal than Democrats.

Republicans move like a single organism, sharing slogans, outrage, and a unified story about who belongs in America—and who doesn’t. Conservative media keeps the message tight, framing every issue as a fight for survival.

Democrats? Good luck getting them to tribe up for long. They’ll show up for a march, sure—but five minutes later, they’re arguing over slogans, fonts, and whether the vegan snacks were sufficiently inclusive. Democrats are a patchwork quilt of causes and identities, barely stitched together. If Republicans look like a marching band pounding out one anthem, Democrats look like people milling around an airport terminal, each checking for their gate.

That’s the imbalance. For Republicans, fear binds the tribe. For Democrats, fear splinters into fifty side quests—and another Zoom call that runs over.

None of this excuses the racism, conspiracies, or bile. But it helps explain why, for so many on the right, politics feels existential.

Because beneath all the talk about tax brackets or infrastructure, America isn’t just arguing policy. We’re wrestling over who belongs, who matters, and who gets to define reality.

And here’s where I come in. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how friends and neighbors who once seemed perfectly reasonable have turned into folks shouting about stolen elections and caravans of invaders.

Along the way, I’ve learned how to spot the Trumpers. They’re the ones playing the zero sum game—where any step forward for someone else feels like a loss for them. And they’re the ones buying cheap shoes. It sounds petty, but it’s not. Cheap shoes that hurt your feet, fall apart fast, and leave you feeling cheated. Because the same people terrified of losing status often sabotage themselves economically, too. The mindset that yells, “Keep the immigrants out!” is the same one that whispers, “Never pay an extra dime for quality.”

And then there’s my good friend—kind, generous, and absolutely convinced the IRS should be defunded. That’s how deep this goes. People who’d never dream of storming the Capitol still carry that same low hum of tribal mistrust: of government, of institutions, of anyone else holding the wheel.

This isn’t just political chatter. It’s a psychic wound.

And the wound is far from healed.