After writing a lot about Trump and the US election and the differences between Canada and the U.S., I think I’m finally understanding the Trump phenomena, or Trumpism (as it can exist without Trump, although not as persuasively – and will exist in some form after he disappears from the scene). It is my opinion that it has all the elements of a cult – a very large cult, mind you, but a cult nevertheless.
A cosmology has emerged over the past few years, with an almost evangelical flavour, that has been bought into by a wide category of people. They are not all bed partners, i.e. on the same page financially or culturally. In fact some of the sub-sets are quite opposed to each other. They however find common cause in a type of cult led by Donald Trump. Some of it is a kind of contrarianism, a thumbing of your nose at established norms. It is also not “real” Republicanism but a faction.
The groups or segments that see cold, hard personal gain with Trump and thus support him include:
- Trump adoration group: this is the hardest category for me to understand, given all of Trump’s flaws, but you can see it in the reaction to him during his rallies. It’s a worshiping, an adoration, a veneration. It’s Trump as reality-TV star and judge in The Apprentice and his love of pageantry and obsession with ratings and success. Americans, in particular, love their celebrities and he’s their celebrity-in-chief. (There is also a strong anti-Biden rhetoric, with words like senility and socialism thrown about.)
- Money focussed high earners group: those that feel Trump has helped their financial case, through increased incomes because of reduced taxes or regulations. Those in the top 20% income bracket received a 3% gain. The average high-income household enjoyed a windfall of ~$10,000. High on their value system is wealth and the possessions that go with it. One measure is their 401k investment earnings that are taxed after retirement. This category is fortunate to have enough money to be able to make investments in the first place (88% of those with an income over $100,000 are in the financial markets) vs the vast majority of the American public. At the upper end of this are the very wealthy.
- Corporate shareholders: In December 2017 the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced taxes from 35% to 21%. The tax savings didn’t go to employee salaries and benefits (only 6% did), but to shareholders in the form of dividends (or stock buybacks, which propped up prices and increased the value of stock investors already held). The savings from the tax act simply created more wealth for shareholders.
- Entrepreneurs: this group feels Trump has been good for business. A survey in 2017 revealed that 65% of business owners thought the new tax regime was the “best thing the government did for their companies last year”. They like his relaxed regulatory environment (Trump signed an executive order in 2017 requiring agencies to abolish two regulations for every one issued).
- Older white, non-college educated males: this category see the world around them changing in ways they dislike and they can’t do anything about it. Jobs are being exported offshore, especially to China. High tech is making manual jobs redundant. They like anything that smacks of “Buy America”. Under Trump unemployment fell in 2019 to the lowest rate in the country for 50 years, and for those without a high school diploma, unemployment fell to the lowest rate ever. Their wages increased as well: nominal wages in 2018 and 2019 rose at the fastest rate since before the recession. 2019 also saw the largest fall in poverty in a single year since 1966.
- Freedom for Americans, without constraints: this group places individual rights well over group rights, almost regardless of the consequences. They harken back to America’s old days when men (always men) carried guns because they needed to protect themselves, and were free from government (that terrible government, particularly the kind like the British version they rejected early in America’s history, that made them pay unfair taxes without representation). There exists a real tension between asserting ones personality vs supporting the social order and standards. This group resists wearing masks when told to by COVID professionals. Climate change deniers abound, and anti-vaxxers. Also those that demand the right to choose their own health care plan, and not have a government one imposed upon them.
- The anti-politicians gang: this group has a fixation on the “all politicians are bad” meme, that they are all dishonest and always in the game for personal gain. They like the idea of someone (an outsider) going to Washington to “drain the swamp” and create some chaos.
- Law and order group: this is a category that dislike marches or protests or any kind of civil disobedience; certainly police forces, along with their police methods (guns, shields, etc.) and style (male, tough), should be supported. They want their own guns, too.
- American exceptionalism/America first group: this is a category that feed off the myth that America is the height of all world-wide societal measures: wealth; military power (very important); education; entertainment; innovation; corporate power. It’s personified by the slogan “Make America Great”, an inward focusedness. As a corollary, it rejects traditional alliances, and the world order that the U.S. fostered in the latter half of the 20th century. Free trade is no longer an ideal.
- Religious righteousness group: this category have God on their side which provides the moral authority to pursue their notions of right and wrong; their bottom line is that Trump can serve up to them a pro-life agenda along with conservative sexual politics and pro family values. They will overlook Trump’s behaviours (and their so called “values”) to achieve their ends.
- Racist group: they may be closet racist or overt but either way they are important. It’s not just black racism, it’s brown and all non-white. The anti-black attitudes remain a throw-back to America’s past upon which a Civil War was fought, and has never really been fully resolved. It is loaded with judgments regarding intelligence, gangs, criminal culture and drugs, and the overstepping of Black Lives Matter folk.
- Anti-immigration group: The anti-immigration mentality rejects the idea of more people coming into the country and using scarce resources, or receiving unfair/unjust benefits from the existing citizen’s hard-earned tax dollars, or taking jobs away from deserving Americans, or receiving American citizenship by being born by mothers in the country illegally. Trump significantly decreased both inbound immigration and residence and naturalization of immigrants already on US soil. There is likely a perception connecting the decline in immigration with increased wages and improved job opportunities.
- Environmental change sceptics: this category either denies or are strongly sceptical regarding the science behind the environmental movement and the push to control CO2 emissions. They are reluctant to pay the economic price of the various strategies required and would prefer to have other countries lead and take the (what they see in their short term mentality) economic consequences. Besides China and India and Brazil etc. pollute and are doing little.
- Latinos who have lived with despots: many Latino refugees have a history of fleeing political tensions, often with socialist regimes, thus quite possibly being very anti-socialism as a result. This includes the large anti-Castro Cuban diaspora that are strongly pro-Trump, and those who have fled Nicaragua, Salvador and Venezuela. Even the memory of those whose parents experienced the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) figure in the calculus.
- Conspiracy theorists: this is a growing lot that are fuelled by social media and special bulletin boards. The theories are usually sinister and powerful and often political. The range of “conspiracies” are many, from QAnon (which is growing, is very American, and uses the language of the Christian scriptures to justify their predictions), and others that often overlap with the “Freedom For Americans, without constraints” group, i.e. anti-vaxxers, Kennedy assassination theorists, the “truth” around 9/11; water fluoridation; chemtrails; illuminati secret societies that pull strings to influence world order and gain world power (within which anti-Semitism continues to be a concern). Conspiracy believers often perceive a governmental threat to individual rights and display a deep skepticism regarding who one votes for the Democrats.
- Committed, doctrinaire Republican Party members: this will always exist, i.e. those whose perception of themselves are defined by their party allegiance; those whose family and close personal friends are Republican. The definition of Republicanism varies depending on the current sophistry of the day, but certainly it is clear on what it isn’t, and that’s socialist (which is almost communist).
Of course, as I said, there is crossover among the above. There are also no commonalities among others. But the one thing they find in common is one man and one party that can deliver things to them that they can’t get (at all – or as much) from the Democratic Party. For those supporting Trump, the messages inherent in the above groups are more powerful than Trump’s incompetence in handling the pandemic, or his collusion with foreign powers, or his personality, or even his racism.
These segments are aided and supported by an important media enabler, Fox News. Not only are they doctrinaire but they are making a great deal of money doing it. They are clever at reinforcing bias: people certainly prefer to listen to/watch stuff that agrees with what they know and feel (and rejecting other bits of information). There seems to be few boundaries that guide their “reporting” that runs from mischievous to misinformation in their Trump supportive role. The “other” main TV source, CNN, is personified in a similar fashion – as biased and doctrinaire. As well as Fox, social media play an important role (the subject probably of another post)..
Radicalization (and I use that word explicitly) is a process that requires constant reinforcement – and that is provided by both the media choices people make and the company they keep.
The problem is that once in, it’s hard to extract oneself. Edwin Hodge, a professor of psychology interviewed on CBC radio recently, stated that the problem with challenging people on their beliefs is that it makes them more stubborn; they double down. (If it happens publicly, say in on-line spaces, it can result in blocking, unfriending, etc.)
So that’s it- we have a cult-like phenomenon in Trump and Trumpism. It will not disappear.
.