Among the tens of millions of Americans who find Donald Trump abhorrent, a grave threat to our nation’s future, and a purveyor of divisiveness and deceit, the question looms: what to make of the other millions who support him, often with something akin to religious fervor?
The steadfast devotion of Trump’s base has sparked widespread analysis of it as a cult-like movement. It has led to soul-searching about whether a broad swath of America really believes in a pluralistic constitutional republic based on freedom and democracy. It has forced us to contend with the continuing reality of our nation’s racist history, its communities of privilege, and its structural injustices. We can also bemoan the corrosive effects of right-wing media and the algorithms that turn many corners of the internet into echo chambers of conspiracy theories, intolerance, and outright hate.
The specter of Trump’s second coronation as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee — which at this point seems to be primary season’s most likely outcome — understandably fills much of this country with existential dread. And also bewilderment. How can anybody like this charlatan, much less want him to be president?
A few days back, New York Times columnist David French, a libertarian evangelical living in Tennessee who left the Republican Party over Donald Trump, wrote an interesting take from the frontlines of a divided America. Titled “The Rage and Joy of MAGA America,” it’s worth reading in full.
French’s main thesis is that to understand the MAGA movement, one cannot focus only on the threat it poses to America and many Americans. French doesn’t dismiss the danger of Trump and his followers; he emphasizes it. He simply (and importantly) says the dynamic of motivation is more complicated.
If you follow the rallies via Twitter or mainstream newscasts, you see the anger, but you miss the fun. When I was writing for The Dispatch, one of the best pieces we published was a report by Andrew Egger in 2020 about the “Front Row Joes,” the Trump superfans who follow Trump from rally to rally the way some people used to follow the Grateful Dead. Egger described the Trump rally perfectly: “For enthusiasts, Trump rallies aren’t just a way to see a favorite politician up close. They are major life events: festive opportunities to get together with like-minded folks and just go crazy about America and all the winning the Trump administration’s doing.
The picture for those living inside the Trump bubble, French contends, looks far different from how it seems to the rest of us.
For them, the MAGA community is kind and welcoming. For them, supporting Trump is fun. Moreover, the MAGA movement is heavily clustered in the South, and Southerners see themselves as the nicest people in America. It feels false to them to be called “mean” or “cruel.” Cruel? No chance. In their minds, they’re the same people they’ve always been — it’s just that they finally understand how bad you are. And by “you,” again, they often mean the caricatures of people they’ve never met.
“In fact, they often don’t even know about the excesses of the Trump movement. Many of them will never know that their progressive neighbors have faced threats and intimidation. And even when they do see the movement at its worst, they can’t quite believe it. So Jan. 6 was a false flag. Or it was a “fedsurrection.” It couldn’t have really been a violent attempt to overthrow the elected government, because they know these people, or people like them, and they’re mostly good folks. It had to be a mistake, or an exaggeration, or a trick or a few bad apples. The real crime was the stolen election.
Creating a warped sense of identity, fostering an “us vs. them” mindset, using a sense of belonging for the in-group to ostracize and dehumanize outsiders and undercut the truth are not tactics unique to Trump. These have long been the instruments of autocrats and tyrants. But French is getting at an important consideration of Trump’s power. He is a showman and a provocateur. His rhetorical techniques tend toward mean-spirited humor over thunderous condemnation. And his “jokes” resonate with his audience.
There is often a striking disconnect between the import of Trump’s words and his onstage persona. The rhetoric is almost always malevolent, but it is delivered more like a circus ringmaster’s schtick than a sermon of gloom (especially when he’s not reading from a teleprompter). Trump, when he’s fully unleashed, is a lot of scary things, but a dour voice behind a podium is not one of them (and in this sense, French draws a contrast with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his floundering campaign).
This carnival effect blurs the line between insiders and outsiders differently than did previous delineations in American life. In the Jim Crow South, there was no place for Black Americans in white spaces. At a Trump rally, as long as you’re wearing the red hat and spouting the applause lines, it seems you can be welcomed regardless of your race, religion, or ethnicity. This dynamic allows Trump supporters to claim they can’t be racist, even as they support policies that divide America along racial lines.
Trump’s misogyny has also been on full display since the beginning of his political career. He has been credibly accused of sexual harassment and assault and even found by a jury to have sexually abused E. Jean Carroll. But the throngs of cheering women at Trump rallies inoculate him with his followers from any such criticism — just as they did with the “Access Hollywood” tape.
The Republican Party has become the Trump “party,” quite literally. It’s a rollicking good time for those who have immersed themselves in MAGA Land. That it is built on lies, conspiracy theories, autocracy, divisiveness, ignorance, shortsightedness, and a host of other threats to our democratic future is not a bug — it’s a feature, to use a maxim from the tech world.
Trump has built a brand that is anathema to substance and truth. The real world is complicated and can be such a downer. It’s so much easier to poke fun at the “other” than to grapple with our common humanity. Trump has been running away from accountability his entire life. He’s always prioritized his own pleasure. Life’s a game to be played and to play others for suckers.
The “let the good times roll,” rock concert vibe of Trump rallies and other parts of his campaign is one of the underestimated keys to his success.
Now he’s gotten millions to join the party — his party — and they’re having a great time even if, and maybe especially because, it makes much of the country miserable.
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My husband and I retired in Alaska and returned after a long absence to my home state in flyover country to help my mother age in place on the family farm. My family, always right wing reactive, were involved in the "Tea Party" shenanigans and were already trading in conspiracies and obvious absurdities in 2011 when we returned. Their days were filled with the droning of Fox "news" and nights watching "reality" TV which they highly anticipated and discussed in the daytime. "Who will the Batchelor send home?" "What will become of some hapless real housewife?" Ugh. I no longer recognize my family. They are utterly lost to me and we're some strange creatures to them with suspect ideas and priorities that whiff of elitism.
They live in a dying farm town where the average age is somewhere north of 60. Downtown such as it is has virtually nothing open on the regular. Nothing moves on Main Street except clouds of dust, tumbleweeds and a scurrying cat or two on most days. The lone cafe closed. They lost their Post Office to a kiosk facility and the bank is long gone. Most of the residents are on Social Security and a lot of the younger people that remain are on welfare. There isn't anything there but palpable despair and ennui.
So in rides trump with a mouthful of promises that he has no intention of keeping and these people get excited. He's a "billionaire" that's "just like them" that "tells it like it is" reinforcing closely held prejudices allowing them to openly dislike and disparage their fellow countrymen for no real reason other than their political affiliation, who they love, how they worship or don't, their national origin or the color of their skin.
He gets them excited like a bad storm gets people excited or the way some people just invent drama (affairs, feuds, run ins with the law) to deal with the terminal boredom and the gray dead-endedness of their existences. The excitement allows him to run his con without resistance. Everyone is against them but him. Yeah! Send me money. America is dying. More excitement/fear. Send me money. Scapegoating the "enemy" as likely as not some hapless civil servant just doing their job. Hilarious! Send threats. You know what to do, also send me more money. Vote for me. Intimidate those that won't bow to the agenda even if it's family or a good neighbor. "Nobody can do it for you like I can." Dopamine hit after dopamine hit.
It gives them something other than their gray rut of an empty life on the forgotten edge of a dying planet. The thrill of hate. The joy of derision. Something "bigger" to belong to. My husband and I sold out, closed our business and moved almost 2000 miles away from this mania in 2018 after a threat of violence was sent by one sibling to another after Charlottesville. Up close and personal experience. Interestingly enough our leaving without a forwarding address was in some ways enough to smack some reality back into the situation. Life long consequences though, fr all of us. I haven't seen most of my family since 2016. It's safer and sanity preserving not to. Sad times.