As Adam Serwer of the Atlantic famously wrote in 2018, "malice is embraced as a virtue" for the Republican Party in modern times. Cruelty, he argued, "makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united." It's not just a nostalgia for the past that animates them, it's a nostalgia for the ugliest, darkest parts of the past. The suffering most of us are glad is in the past is something the GOP wants to bring roaring back to life, even as they erase the documenting of it in the history books. 

AMANDA MARCOTTE

Amanda Marcotte is a senior politics writer at Salon and the author of "Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself." Follow her on Twitter @AmandaMarcotte and sign up for her biweekly politics newsletter, Standing Room Only.