The One Reason So Many People Can't Quit Trump
How can anyone still support this guy?
If I had a dime for every time I thought, said, or heard this question, I’d be delivering this message from my expansive villa in Tuscany.
Thousands of think pieces have been generated, books authored, documentaries assembled, and op-eds published, on understanding the reason otherwise decent, intelligent, goodhearted people continue to stand behind someone who, objectively speaking, is one of the worst human beings on the planet—let alone to ever sit in the highest seat of power in our nation.
The rest of us hear the steady stream of bile continually erupting from his mouth, we survey the endless litany of legal and moral offenses he’s committed, we watch him fail to string together a coherent thought, we take note of every racist, misogynistic, bigoted thing he’s said and done, we witness him openly assailing the Constitution and the rule of Law.
We look at him, and then we look around.
We see people we love and once respected. We turn toward our parents, our spouses, our favorite aunt, our lifelong friends, our longtime neighbors. We see them steadfastly, even passionately standing with him, despite a billion transgressions, any one of which would have been a dealbreaker for them in any other context and with any other human being. For the third election cycle in a row, we watch them plant their yard signs affixed with his name, a name mired in scandal and criminality and cruelty.
And we find ourselves asking, “How in the hell is this still possible? What is wrong with them?”
And as many have rightly noted, there are a myriad of reasons his cultic hold on tens of millions of Americans has been difficult to break: political tribalism partisan media, inherited racism, toxic masculinity, abortion fixation, terrible theology, active or internalized misogyny, a lack of critical thinking, the need to feel part of something, false beliefs about his abilities.
And yet, those still all seem incomplete, because the people whose allegiance to him most frustrate us, seem to be better than all of these possible explanations. We don’t believe they have disregard for women or hatred of immigrants or homophobia. We know them to be compassionate, loving, generous human beings. We see the many moral and spiritual commonalities between them and us, and so we’re still hard pressed to explain it.
What I’ve come to believe is that the single reason so many people can’t quit Donald Trump is because they simply cannot bring themselves to admit that they made a mistake. They are not still aligned with him out of shared values but self-preservation.
To part with him now, would be to contradict years of strident social media posts, it would mean retracting thousands of public declarations when they embraced conspiracies and stories that have since been proven wrong: about election interference or vaccines or immigrant crimes waves or Leftist legal witch hunts.
They know everything we know about him. They aren’t in denial. Somewhere between initially supporting him in 2016, they have had their eyes opened and come to understand how predatory and destructive he is—and yet, they cannot bring themselves to take ownership of their previous errors in judgment.
And so, as simple and yet profoundly sad as it is, tens of millions of decent human beings are remaining tethered to this vile, malevolent man to save face.
Perhaps the one small shred of hope this time, is that in the quiet of their hearts they have reached the bridge too far. His refusal to accept the 2020 election results, his manufacturing of a stolen election lie, his inciting of an insurrection at our Capitol, his overturning of Roe V Wade, his weaponizing of the Supreme Court, his theocratic blueprint in project 2025.
They recognize that his opponent Kamala Harris is the antithesis of him: a measured, mature, empathetic human being whose love for this nation is real, whose joy is not manufactured, whose leadership will bring a stability and reason that we have lacked ever since the man they once celebrated showed up.
And maybe they will never be able to bring themselves to publicly admit that aligning themselves with him was a terrible, grievous mistake—but perhaps enough of them, in the quiet solitude of the voting booth, will.
That would be a beautiful declaration.
John, I agree with most of your analysis in this post, and share the frustration that what seems like reason, if not base rationality, seems unable to reach so many of our fellow citizens. I have thought about this conundrum quite a bit (as have so many of us) and offer a few additional possible factors.
1) Stubbornly persistent racism, both overt and subtle, hard and soft. A variety of tribalism based on immutable (and irrelevant) characteristics, stoked in part (but only in part) by the recent immigration surges and all of our governments' (feds, states, local) less than comprehensive and caring responses to date. The cruelty and irresponsibility of the memes alone demonstrates this factor's influence.
2) Misogyny/patriarchy. Not only many of us men, but a frustrating number of women remain in, and even joined recently, the "trad wife" and "purity culture" perversions that would downgrade women's places and roles in society to that of "helpmate" (such a deceptively innocuous seeming term) - you know, the quiet, supportive, deferential, submissive, unassuming, domestic workhorses and baby factories who allow the "men" in their lives to dictate to them the purpose and scope of their lives, both in the microcosm of the home and in the macrocosm of society.
3) Empathy deficit, either ab initio or developed over the years. One of the many downsides of media saturation in our lives is the ubiquitous presence and non-stop communication of charity "emergencies" in our towns, states, country, and world. (The needs are great, indeed, but the constant, in your face barrage is emotionally wearing - somewhat like the barrage of political party fundraising emails asking for donations to far away races and confirmations for the umpteenth time of the recipient of my impending vote.) Indeed, there are those who, from an early age, have had a "me first and only" approach to life (I have a few in my extended family). There are also those who, having very little financial security themselves, see the many charity commercials or hear social justice speeches and react with emotions ranging from frustration at being "overlooked" (e.g., who is "fighting" for me), to jealousy (e.g., what makes starving Africans so important when we have so many kids starving here in our country), to anger (e.g., if they cannot support their own kids, why did they have them - or "not my kids"). We have heard these reactions in our families, in our churches, and in the media. They correlate closely with MAGA support.
4) Narcissism and antisocial disorders - "the cruelty is the point." Trump has been described as a boiling stew of personality disorders - an example of a Dark Triad personality. Narcissism and antisocial personalities are more prevalent in our society than we have previously understood. I have run into folks exhibiting various degrees of these traits in my extended family, throughout my career, and in my social activities. Sadly, when I was engaged in parish activities during my time (decades) as a Catholic, I ran into these types of people in all roles - from priests to nuns to "church-a-holic" parishioners who felt "called" (by their egos, evidently) to run parish ministries, and to judgers and equivocators on the sidelines who could only criticize and tear down - never build up. They made it easy to leave once the dogmatic edifice collapsed.
DJT resonates with all of these people, probably to the degree with which their basis of agreement (see above) is in evidence in their lives. I have rarely seen a truly "happy" and certainly not a serene DJT supporter - where their happiness is not the obverse side of the coin of the DJT realm - hatred and exclusion of the "other."
Such connections usually do not fail, when they fail at all, openly or at once. This might help to explain the noticable decrease in DJT signs and rally attendance we are seeing. Someone whose support of DJT is based on one or more of the reasons suggested above probably will not "abandon" DJT vociferously, subscribe to The Bulwark, or follow Andra Watkins' Project 2025 takedown on Substack, but rather simply lower the temperature, wither a bit while still on the vine, and perhaps stay home on election day. Realizing that despite all the heat and volume of his rhetoric, DJT did nothing for them or their personal welfare during his term other than stoke their misogyny by nominating reactionary people who lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the single characteristic that determined their selection to fill a position on the SCOTUS, they may be slowly realizing that the "joke" has been on them all along. The very people who they have been electing to represent them have been using them instead for their own personal gain, while pushing their buttons to maintain the high levels of distraction.
And don't forget the power of right wing media to pervert the substance and effects of Democratic governance and policies to preserve the distraction and cloak the dystopia reasonably anticipated from a return of the broken and deeply flawed Republican nominees (yes - many of them). If you swim in crap every day, you aren't going to smell like roses.
That's my take anyway. May we reap the good luck that so often seems to follow hard work!! Vote Harris/Walz and blue down the line. They cannot do it alone.
I am a housemate with someone you describe. There are two other people in the multi person house who have abandoned the Republican Party knowing about Project 2025. However the third person is still drinking the kool-aide. Voting for Trump is against his best interests.
He may start to see the truth IF they are presented Reality Shocks, such as the true nature of the Republican candidate for Governor of North Carolina - and the fact that the Trump campaign actually knew about his history before they endorsed him.
Unfortunately, every time there is an event or a statement that demonstrates the malevolence of Trump - social media and Fox, etc. concoct an “alternative” story to feed to this person. Most Americans aren’t used to seeing nonstop lies on Television. There used to be “truth in advertising”. Companies could be sued if they lied in their ads. Some of these people believe this garbage they hear.
There is a documentary “The Brainwashing of my Dad”. 2015 which demonstrates the effect this constant stream of lies has on people. It’s evil and very effective.