Trump Voter Psychology: A Cult- Like Following
What was supposed to be a sweeping referendum on Donald Trump, turned out to be a marginal victory for Democrats. So, if you’re counting, that’s the second time Democrats and their polls underestimated the power of Trumpism. It seems to be that they are in denial about the significant reason why Trump’s supporters remain unwaveringly loyal: authoritarianism. In this episode, we dive into the psychology behind what Trump activated in his base and what it means to our ability to reunite our country.
Show Notes
The World We Inherit - Trump Voter Psychology: A Cult-Like Following
Summary
Democrats beware! We are not out of the woods yet. Though Joe Biden is our President Elect, we cannot deny the fact that Donald Trump has an incredibly strong allegiance of supporters – 70 million in fact – that will not gracefully fade into the background during what we hope to be a peaceful transition of power.
POWER. What does it mean? What does it look like to a voter? What role did it have in Trump’s campaign strategy in both 2016 and 2020? Who are Trump Supporters and what about Trump appealed to them the most?
Tune in to this episode of The World We Inherit to learn about the psychologies and theories behind Trump’s cult-like following and how his leaving the White House will most likely not be the end for them.
If you like what you hear, hit SUBSCRIBE to this Podcast and never miss an episode. You can also HMU on Instagram @theworldweinherit and Facebook.com/theworldweinherit
Topics Covered:
The psychology of Trump Supporters and the MAGA movement
Debunk misconceptions of who the Trump Supporter is
What is Authoritarianism and how did it play a role in Trump’s following?
The Democratic Denial – will there truly be a peaceful transition of Power? Will our country reunite? Or are we underestimating the strength behind MAGA country?
Resources:
Instagram: @theworldweinherit
Works Cited:
Pettigrew, Thomas F.. "Social Psychological Perspectives on Trump Supporters." Journal of Social and Political Psychology [Online], 5.1 (2017): 107-116. Web. 5 Nov. 2020
Womick, Jake, et al. “Group-Based Dominance and Authoritarian Aggression Predict Support for Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” Social Psychological and Personality Science, vol. 10, no. 5, July 2019, pp. 643–652, doi:10.1177/1948550618778290.
Becky L. Choma, Yaniv Hanoch,Cognitive ability and authoritarianism: Understanding support for Trump and Clinton,Personality and Individual Differences,Volume 106,2017,Pages 287-291,ISSN 0191-8869, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.054.
Smith, David Norman, and Eric Hanley. “The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?” Critical Sociology, vol. 44, no. 2, Mar. 2018, pp. 195–212, doi:10.1177/0896920517740615.
Jonathan Knuckey & Komysha Hassan (2020) Authoritarianism and support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, The Social Science Journal, DOI: 10.1016/j.soscij.2019.06.008
Dunwoody, P. T., & Plane, D. L. (2019). The influence of authoritarianism and outgroup threat on political affiliations and support for antidemocratic policies. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 25(3), 198–210. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000397
Episode Transcript
(00:00):
Democrats, I love you, but this is an intervention. I know that you think that because Joe Biden is our president-elect that you're done with Donald Trump, but you are not.
(00:21):
So, it's 2016 and the election comes around, you're super confident. There's just no way you're losing to Trump. But lo and behold , you get sucker punched, but then you think to yourself, accidents happen, right, you can't predict everything. So the next four years, you're just thinking to yourself, Trump supporters were caught up in the glitz and glam of Trump, the tongue in cheek humor of the Access Hollywood tapes, and the totally joking comments about Mexicans and Muslims. But, they lived in Trump's America for four years. There is no way this honeymoon phase is going to last. They have to be tired of his lies and covering up for him. But fast forward to the end of election week, and as of November the 8th, he has upwards of 70 million votes, and that's about 70 million more people than you thought would vote for him. And, that's why I'm talking to you today.
(01:20):
Democrats are in deep, deep denial about how strong the allegiance of Trump's base is. So, if you're one of these people, I suggest you listen to this episode, because we're going to talk about the psychology behind Trump's cult-like following, and why that means Trump leaving the White House is not the end. This is The World We Inherit, and I'm your host, Anita Kirti.
(01:49):
On November 3rd, I actually went to the polls really quick to talk to some Trump supporters about kind of why they voted for him. Because to be honest, I have never spoken to a Trump supporter about that at all. So, I wanted to get an idea of what their rationale was behind their support. So from the interview that I did with a Trump supporter there, to give you an idea, he is a middle-class white man in his forties and voted for Trump. He was standing outside of the precinct with a huge flag, I guess, trying to get people to vote. And my first question was, "Why did you vote for Trump?" The first answer that he gave, and the one that you hear the most about Trump's supporters is that, "He likes what Trump did with the economy." So that got me thinking, if all of these people or a substantial number of his voters had voted for him because of economic issues, there has to be a through line here.
(02:49):
They either must all have the same economic anxieties, or have similar economic hardships, so there must be a common thread here, which is why so many people talk about the economy when you ask them about why they voted for Trump. This rationale, one researcher described as the white working-class thesis, which essentially is that Rust Belt factory workers had lost jobs due to globalization, and factories moving to places like China, and they felt left behind and were in economic hardships, which is why they were driven to vote for Trump. So, a study conducted by the University of Kansas, by David Norman Smith and Eric Hanley titled, The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why? And, this was published in 2018, found that, quote, "A massive pre-election study showed that Trump supporters are relatively unlikely to be jobless or to work part-time." "They have above average wages, low exposure to immigrant workers, and under 10% of them work in production", end quote.
(04:00):
So, that 10% is really important because production jobs were the ones that left the country. So, so few of them fit into that caricature of the white working-class production worker that lost their jobs. And quote, "In the general election, Trump outpolled Clinton by a larger margin among voters with annual incomes from $70,000 to $120,000, than he did among any other income group." As it said in the quote as well, "It's apparent that a predictor of voting for Trump is not economic anxiety or economic hardships." So, if we're trying to have an understanding as to why people vote for him, it's clear that the through line is not economic anxieties. And, I will include the citations for all the studies I'm going to quote in the description, so don't worry about that if you want to read more into that.
(04:59):
Okay. So, now that we debunk that misconception about Trump's supporters, let's get into the factor that actually is a true predictor for Trump's support. It's authoritarianism. Let me give you a quick definition of what that means. It's defined by a compliance to authority, resistance to new experiences, aggression towards outgroups, and having a rigidly hierarchical worldview. So, authoritarianism is a umbrella term. And, it's not a policy preference like having a small government or universal healthcare. It's actually a ideology or worldview that can be activated by a leader who knows how to play on people's fears. So, when Trump came onto the scene, it felt like that out of the blue, he acquired such a faithful following. And, that's because the people who support him had a dormant authoritarian worldview. So to measure authoritarianism, there are two popular measures or indices that scientists use. The first one is right-wing authoritarianism .
(06:11):
And as a quick side note, authoritarianism is not solely found in conservatives, you actually have liberal authoritarian. It's just that authoritarianism is much more strongly correlated with conservatism as opposed to liberalism. So, the right wing authoritarian measure or RWA defines a certain type of authoritarian. And, it's someone who believes that people should respect and obey authorities, follow social conventions, and be subject to punishment if they don't. And, the second measure we're going to discuss is the social dominance orientation or SDO. It's this general belief that there must be hierarchies between social groups, and those above should be able to wield power over those below.
(06:58):
They also have negative attitudes towards disadvantaged groups that they consider outgroups, and tend to support policies that maintains a certain social hierarchy. Both of them have a preference for their ingroup, and have negative attitudes towards outgroups. So, a good example of the difference between the two would be that when Trump claimed that he would have a complete shutdown of Muslims entering our country, people who are higher and RWA see it as a way to maintain our current social order. And people higher in SDO, see it as a way to maintain power.
(07:37):
So, let's look at how these measures are linked to Trump supporters. A study conducted by Becky Choma from Ryerson University, and Yaniv Hanoch from Plymouth University, titled, cognitive ability and authoritarianism, understanding support for Trump and Clinton. Found that, quote, "Path analysis controlling for political party identification revealed that higher RWA and SDO uniquely predicted more favorable attitudes of Trump, greater intentions to vote for Trump and lower intentions to vote for Clinton," end quote. And because, they found that both these measures predicted Trump's support, they concluded that Trump is able to appeal to many different types of authoritarian positions.
(08:21):
To be more specific, a study conducted by Patrick Murray from Monmouth University found that, quote, "The mean authoritarian score of strong Trump approvers is more than twice that of strong Trump disapproves others across the board." And, that isn't to say 100% of Trump's supporters are in RWA or, and SDO, there are some supporters that score low on both, or either.
(08:49):
I'm going to throw one last study at you, a study conducted by Jonathan Knuckey and Komysha Hassan published in the Social Science Journal found that, quote, "Findings indicate that authoritarianism had the largest effect on white vote choice in 2016 than in any prior election that was analyzed," end quote. They analyzed from 1992 to 2016.
(09:19):
So, if you're wondering what does it matter that these people score high in RWA and SDO, and tend to have a authoritarian worldview? Well, in the study that I had mentioned earlier, titled, The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why? They found that, quote, "We see that Trump voters differ significantly from non Trump voters." "Each one point increase in prejudice against women corresponds to a 23.5% increase in the likelihood of voting for Trump; for immigrants, it's 22%, and for African-Americans, the figure is 19.4%," end quote. They go on to say that, quote, "It appears that authoritarianism and prejudice are not simply associated, but are in fact two sides of the same coin." Authoritarian aggressiveness takes aim at despised groups, and authoritarian submissiveness prompts support for leaders who target those same groups." "In other words, authoritarianism is support for intolerant leaders because they are intolerant," end quote. I just read verbatim from the study, because I don't think I could have said it better. Authoritarianism is relevant, because it actually is linked to prejudices.
(10:39):
And, it's not really that much of a surprise because if you think about the definition of authoritarianism, it's only a logical extension to think that they would have prejudices against outgroups. And sadly, that's not the only thing. Authoritarianism is actually also linked to anti-democratic values. In a study by Dunwoody and Plane titled, the influence of authoritarianism and outgroup threat on political affiliations, and support for anti-democratic policies. Whew, that was a mouthful, said, quote, "We found that those high in authoritarianism and outgroup threat perception were more likely to support anti-democratic policies targeting outgroups, such as implementing a Muslim registry and profiling Mexicans, and to abandon the rule of law by postponing elections, and fast-tracking the deportation of illegal immigrants," end quote. So, I'm sure your ears perked up when I said elections, because that is the hell we're going through right now. So, I went back to one of these studies that I'd mentioned before, the one from Monmouth University, and they tried to figure out how far Trump supporters would go for Trump.
(11:52):
So, they asked Trump supporters in a qualitative survey, what they would do if Trump lost in November, and then quote, "Declares the election was fixed and crooked." And, they found that 23% of people that scored high on the SDO and RWA scales said that, quote, "Trump should continue as president in this situation, while 53% disagree," end quote. And, one in four is a little troubling to say the least. And, what's even funnier is that, in another study that I had read, they were talking about how, if you specifically mentioned the constitution, they actually choose the option of supporting the constitution. So, it's less about democratic values for them, and more that the constitution kind of represents their group identity that they're trying to preserve. So, that was really interesting too.
(12:54):
Whew, okay. So, I did throw a lot of information at you. So, what we talked about in summary was the two types and measures of authoritarianism, which was the right wing authoritarianism, and the social dominance orientation. Social dominance is more about power, and right wing authoritarianism tends to be more about maintaining social order, because they fear the outside world. And, you can be high in both of those skills. And then, we discussed about authoritarianism, and it's link to prejudice and it's link to anti-democratic values. And, the real conclusion that we came to was Trump supporters vote for Trump, because he is intolerant, not in spite of it. They like the prejudice. They like the domineering leadership. It is not a defect for them, it's a function. Also, and I should say, not all Trump supporters, I mean, that's a given. But, we're talking about the strongest predictor of Trump's support.
(14:08):
So, I think the first concern is how this election is going to turn out. Will there be a peaceful transfer of power? Which is one of the foundations of democracy. And, will there be violence? Will there be protests? And, it seems that from the preliminary version that we've seen in the past couple days, before a projected winner was even announced, and from what we know about authoritarianism, that, that is pretty likely. And beyond that, I think that even if we somehow get to the day of Biden being sworn in and become president, that Democrats are looking at this as, "Okay, so the four we're just going to act like it didn't happen."" We're going to undo everything that he did, and we're just going to wash our hands of this whole Trump thing."
(14:58):
And, I was listening to the acceptance speech from Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, and they keep characterizing this as, "Oh, we're just going to accept one another and unite as Americans." And, that really is being in denial of the psychology behind Trump's support. The amount of work that's going to have to be done to address authoritarianism is much more complicated than just holding hands and singing around a campfire. And, we'll never get to a place of reuniting the country until we actually accept what the problem truly is. So, Democrats real first step in this administration is to take the time to understand MAGA country, and maybe to end on a more hopeful note, more education, more exposure to minorities. I hate that word, exposure, like we're frigging radiation or something. Those are all the ways that have been proven to decrease prejudice. So with that, I will get going. This is The World We Inherit, and I'm your host, Anita Kirti. Thanks for listening.
Works Cited
Choma, Becky, and Hanoch, Yaniv. "Cognitive ability and authoritarianism: Understanding support for Trump and Clinton,Personality and Individual Differences" Volume 106,2017,Pages 287-291,ISSN 0191-8869, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.054.
Dunwoody, P. T., & Plane, D. L. (2019). The influence of authoritarianism and outgroup threat on political affiliations and support for antidemocratic policies. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 25(3), 198–210. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000397.
Knuckey, Jonathan & Hassan, Komysha. (2020) "Authoritarianism and support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election," The Social Science Journal, DOI: 10.1016/j.soscij.2019.06.008.
Pettigrew, Thomas F.. "Social Psychological Perspectives on Trump Supporters." Journal of Social and Political Psychology [Online], 5.1 (2017): 107-116. Web. 5 Nov. 2020
Smith, David Norman, and Eric Hanley. “The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?” Critical Sociology, vol. 44, no. 2, Mar. 2018, pp. 195–212, doi:10.1177/0896920517740615.
Womick, Jake, et al. “Group-Based Dominance and Authoritarian Aggression Predict Support for Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” Social Psychological and Personality Science, vol. 10, no. 5, July 2019, pp. 643–652, doi:10.1177/1948550618778290.