The left has little power in using fear because unlike racism, homophobia, and xenophobia, classism directed at the rich hasn’t really been a core part of American culture in its history. The GOP is able to cultivate and strengthen ingrained racist, xenophobic and homophobic attitudes many Americans have. That’s why I think trump, and many politicians like him became so popular. In the past thirty years, there has been a progressive push to rightfully shame and diminish racist etc. attitudes, but when trump came into office, and the movement against that push coalesced around him, he made people feel less shameful about those attitudes and to embrace them. That is the truly scary part about what’s changing.

It’s something you can clearly see a little bit in the OP. He knows that because of the shame culture around homophobia, he can’t outright say he’s a homophobe, but he knows that he is one, and wants to dog whistle that to other people like him. Eventually, they WILL go mask off, and when they’re comfortable enough to do that, I wonder what horrible place our country will be in.