You're right, it is tied to a sense of self. I live in the south, and most white republicans who begin to feel attacked for their political stances or 'beliefs' either just double down in debates or withdraw and become more cynical. It's also really mixed in with religion too, evangelical churches are a huge part of white southern communities and smaller, regionalized megachurches are capitalizing on this. The pulpit is where church and state meet for a lot of people, so a lot of republican platforms are reinforced and fear-instilled.

I'm confident that a lot of republicans are mostly rational people, but media, religion, cynicism, fear and just these bubbles of security they build for themselves just continues to send them down the rabbit hole. And those things are rooted in terrible things: racism, white supremacy, anti-immigration, imperialism. But hearing those words just drive them further away, because it's too painful to really wrestle with the terrible things they 'might' have done and weren't aware of. These crutches, especially religion, provides them with an answer, and it just makes me sad knowing that they're taking advantage of each other because they're being taken advantage of too.