A Final Plea to Trump Voters
Hannah Arendt
It is now less than ten days until (the beginning of) the election, and I wanted to get in one last salvo on what will be either the end, or the reanimation of the Trump Era. As with many liberals, Trump has lived rent-free, as they say, in my head for the last nine years or so. It would be hard to overestimate the background sense of dread and nausea that has plagued me since the Orange One’s descent down that golden escalator in 2015 (and absurdly, that happened on my birthday — June 16th — forever adding a sour note to my cumpleanos festivities).
To be a bit more precise, Trump himself doesn’t really bother me that much any more. After a few years, it became apparent that he essentially just acts like The Apprentice never went off the air, which leaves him free to behave theatrically, always more concerned with his ratings and ad revenue than the actual consequences of his words and actions in the temporal plane. Once you accept the fact that he is always playing the role of the TV boss who can belittle, reward, or fire his employees at will, then his ‘performance’ becomes less infuriating, and even a shade comical, especially considering that most of his deranged ranting is expressly designed just to provoke his liberal enemies. I would thus consider myself a recovering TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) survivor, maybe seven or eight steps into my healing journey (of course, there is always backsliding — “they’re eating out pets” is apparently a trigger phrase for me).
But as Trump the person has become less upsetting to me through the years, my frustration at the people who continue to support him has grown inversely, far outstripping in seriousness and intensity any reaction to the ongoing antics of the man himself. After all, there will always be rich assholes, strutting around and lecturing us about how awesome they are, and how we puny mortals don’t recognize their brilliance and luminosity enough (Musk and Trump are thus a perfect match, equally indulging in their gilded whining). But these rich guys (and yes, it’s almost always dudes) can’t become true plutocrats without the massive and ongoing support and approval of tens of millions of regular citizens, who buy their swag, go to their rallies, and turn out to vote for them, cycle after cycle.
So the thing that literally keeps me up at night (admittedly, not for very long, as I am a good sleeper) is this question: “how can so many people still support such an obviously reprehensible and odious human being?” What has made cruelty, bullying, intellectual incuriousness, narcissistic bragging, self-pitying whining, bald-faced lying, and flat-out boorishness so attractive to so many Americans? What has catalyzed this amazing alchemy of turning douchebaggery into ‘strength’?
Now, I’m under no delusion that any Trump fan would read this blog. Not many people read this thing anyway, of any stripe. These pieces are mostly for myself, so I can clear thoughts out of my head and get on with accumulating more for the next round of scribbling. But I’ll suspend disbelief for the moment, and pretend that one of you devoted readers will forward this to a Trump relative or friend, and just maybe this piece will convince them to change their vote. A boy can dream.
What comes now is a plea to Trump voters to reconsider their choice, and I’ll lay out the arguments. Recently, I have come to see Trump supporters as divided, roughly, into two different camps: The Culture Warriors and The Pragmatists. There are different sub-groups in each faction, as we’ll see, and they operate with completely different master motifs or templates. It is this diversity of approach that gives Trump such wide support across the country, and it’s what makes the race so close. Because these groups operate with separate playbooks, I will outline separate appeals for each, with different emphases. The Pragmatists will be easier to peel off, but there are chinks in the Culture Warriors’ armor as well. Let’s get at it.
Culture Warriors: Us vs. Them
The culture warriors are Trump’s true core of support. These are the folks who show up to rallies, put gargantuan Fuck Biden signs in their yard, pounce on local librarians for peddling filth (usually for books that aren’t actually in the building), and shout loudly about baby cannibalism, drag queen grooming, and Critical Race Theory (also known as “teaching kids stuff that actually happened”). There are many shades of culture warrior, and they run across a spectrum of fervor. One the one end, you have White Supremacists, Christian Nationalists, No-Exceptions Anti-Abortionsits, and the like. In the middle of the spectrum you’ll find evangelical Christians who still roughly respect the “render unto Caesar” separation thing, along with softer versions of racism and sexism, including the Trad Wives movement. Support for the Ten Commandments in schools would also fall in this middle area of the Culture Warrior camp. On the mildest end of the spectrum would be conservatives who have the general sentiment of, “Isn’t it crazy what’s going on nowadays in our cities? Those wackos are trying to force their fakakta values on us good, hard-working folk!” (they likely wouldn’t use the yiddish word there, but you get the idea).
The controlling motif or template of the Culture Warrior segment of Trump’s support is the age-old Rural vs. Urban rivalry; basically, it’s City Mouse-Country Mouse blown out to cosmic parameters. As I have covered in earlier posts on this blog ( this one is a good example), the key feature of this approach is dualism, with both moral and theological strands. The Christian element of the Culture War lends significant heft to the demonization of political opponents, which is what allows otherwise rational people to believe things that have no basis in reality, from Pizzagate to the fictitious theft of the 2020 election. The Rural-v-Urban template also has a basic dramatic structure, one that perfectly mirrors the Cliffs Notes version of Christianity: The world used to be awesome (Eden/1950s America); some evildoers came in and wrecked everything (Eve/Liberals); but a Savior has come to rout the wicked and save us all (Christ/Trump). This simple story is extremely powerful, despite its utter lack of relevance for our current conditions on the ground, from ecological collapse to the economic implosion of industrial civilization to the psychological bankruptcy of consumer capitalism.
What would be my message to the Trumpist Culture Warriors? Also as mentioned in an earlier post, I would start by acknowledging that everything is, indeed, royally f’ed up. And actually, it’s far more dire even than Trump’s dour warnings about how bad things are. As described above, Trump basically sees himself as your savior. All you have to do is vote for him, and everything will be fixed. Easy peasy. As he told a group of Christians earlier this year, in July: “in four years, you won’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.” Trump offers the easy answer, the quick fix. But his pledge to resolve everything quickly and easily doesn’t jibe with his description of how horrible things are. That’s a clear sign that he has no clue how to actually fix what is broken. So Culture Warriors, trust your sense that everything if screwed up, but not the easy answers that Trump gives. Things will not be fixed by mass deportation (which is way too expensive, won’t work in the long-term, and will drive prices up), tariffs (which will also drive prices up), or tax cuts for the wealthy (trickle down doesn’t get past the upper thigh). And he’s not going to step in and scare everyone into peace, ending the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza on Day One.
Trump doesn’t have the energy (he’s very old, just as a reminder), the intellectual curiosity, or the patience to even comprehend, let alone fix, our biggest problems: ecological collapse (which includes, but is definitely not limited to, global heating), overpopulation and environmental overshoot, the accelerating top-heaviness of global capitalism, which is creating unprecedented inequality both inside and between countries, the downward slope of peak oil and the false hope of renewable green energy, etc. At best, Trump will just ignore and/or deny that any of these things are problems. But they will continue to get worse, and when Trump’s policies fail to right the ship, he may turn to draconian measures, like the things in Project 2025, which he so strongly disavows…now. Like Quint in Jaws, after the shark thwarts all of his tried-and-true tactics, Trump will turn to the Hooper that is Project 2025, and ask, “What exactly can you do with these things of yours?”
One final word in this plea to the Culture Warriors. I understand that you think the world has gone ass-up, with nothing making sense any more. And you’re right, it doesn’t. But the answer is not in striving to create some kind of Christian-Caucasian dreamworld, because that can never exist in reality. Cities are not going to disappear. Gay and trans people are not going to disappear. People who believe in different religions, or no religion at all, are here to stay. Expanding freedom and agency for women will not be rolled back, no matter how loudly you bemoan the decline of “traditional” values. The world is not going to hell because of these things, which are simply part of long-term global changes in demographics and culture. The world’s going to hell because of our crushing presence as a species on the planet, and because of the endlessly-rapacious nature of industrial-capitalist civilization itself.
Do Kamala Harris and the Democrats have an answer for these massive problems? Nope. But the more collaborative and less dualistic approach they have to leadership at least promises that discussions on these issues could be started. And by not voting for Trump, GOP voters could send the message that divisiveness, demonization, and dualism are not the future for the Republican Party.
The Pragmatists
The other Trump camp is what I would call the Pragmatists. These are the folks who probably don’t show up at rallies, are likely not wearing MAGA hats anywhere, and who generally don’t subscribe to the wholesale demonization of everything liberal. Indeed, a good portion of this group is probably pretty liberal on many social and cultural issues, and is decidedly more urban and suburban than the rural-centric culture war crowd.
These more pragmatic Trump supporters are largely concerned with economic issues, at least that’s the public rationalization. They rate Trump much higher on economic policy and international affairs, viewing him as much stronger and more serious than Harris or Biden on these issues. They hearken back to the first Trump term as a prime example of how much better and more stable things were economically and in the international sphere. Trump’s business background and tougher persona give him the edge in an unstable and uncertain world, so they view a vote for him as the responsible, ‘adult’ thing to do, even if they find Trump personally repugnant. This group of pragmatists is also much more likely to not take what Trump says seriously. A good portion of these folks see his bombast and threatening rhetoric as just theatrics, designed to tweak the noses of the libs. One of the most popular tropes amongst the pragmatists is: “Well, he said he was gonna lock up Hillary, but that never happened, so I’m sure he’s not really going to mass deport nine million people or jail his enemies or shut down news outlets that criticize him. That’s all just for show.”
Like the Culture War camp, the Pragmatist group also has a spectrum of supporters. There are the tech, finance, and hedge fund bros who are only focused on what Trump will do for corporate taxation and deregulation, which will open the spigots for business profits (spigots that are already wide open, but apparently not wide enough). There are the boomer and Gen-X 401K watchers, who are just trying to maximize their retirement portfolios, and who want as little disruption to stock market valuations as possible. Then there are African American and Latino men, who have been peeling off from the Democratic party as they achieve more economic success, supporting Trump in his promises to stimulate the business environment, reduce inflation, and shut down the illegal labor that erodes opportunities for lower-skill workers and damages the Latino brand that people who came here legally have worked so hard to establish.
The Pragmatists have a different controlling motif than the Culture Warriors. They do not really embrace the Us-v-Them, hyper-polarized, Christianized drama trope, where the righteous will be led by the Savior Trump to victory over the wicked and sinful urbanites. Indeed, the Pragmatists are probably pretty uncomfortable with much of the overt culture war stuff: the racism, misogyny, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-abortion absolutism, etc. While they might express skepticism over the 2020 election, the Pragmatists are generally not obsessed with re-litigating that alleged theft, and they are probably not too enthusiastic about the outlandish claims that Democrats are stealing votes on a massive and nefarious scale. They stay focused on the kitchen-table and checkbook issues, and give partial lip service to their uncomfortable bedfellows in the Culture War camp.
My message to this Pragmatist group of Trump supporters is similar to my plea with the culture warriors above: don’t fall for the easy answer, the quick fix. The perception that times were so much better in Trump’s first term is a seductive chimera, and has nothing to do with how conditions have changed globally since then. Trump basically inherited a booming economy from Obama (at least in official terms), and simply continued roughly the same policies, with the same results: record-setting corporate profits, record-high stock market valuations, steady and robust job creation, low inflation, etc. All the stats that Trump the Candidate called fake when they were used to tout the Obama economy were the same numbers that Trump the President then used to laud his own performance. Rather than drain the swamp, Trump assembled the usual people for his team: big bankers, big corporate CEOs, big money donors from extractive industries — the usual crowd of what Steve Bannon called “corporate cronies” (remember that Bannon was only useful as a critic of corporate cronyism while Trump was running for office; as soon as Trump was elected, Bannon was bounced out, because those cronies were welcomed in with open arms to the White House).
I understand the desire to turn the clock back to pre-pandemic times, when people worked in offices, gas was relatively cheap, and you could buy a burger for under $10. But you can’t wish away the pandemic and its long-tail aftermath. The pro-Trump ‘pragmatists’ are essentially engaged in wish fulfillment, pretending that global supply chains were not shattered, that the logistics of labor location haven’t been changed forever, that the commercial real estate market hasn’t been completely transformed by remote work, and that corporations haven’t used the crisis as an excuse to ratchet up prices in an unsustainable way, to preserve profit amidst a completely different consumer environment. In other words, the pragmatists are not actually looking at things in a pragmatic manner. If they were, they would see that the US is actually recovering much faster and deeper than almost every other industrialized country.
One other thing should be mentioned here. And this is another plea to the Pragmatists: look within yourself, and ask how much of your preference for Trump is just old-fashioned sexism. Are you rating him higher on economic and international issues simply because he’s a man, and because, deep down, you just don’t trust women to be tough, resilient, and brave? If you really want to be true to your common-sense, pragmatic approach, can you really look at the volatile, unstable, unhinged, vindictive, and bombastic character of Trump, and consider that to be more reliable and safe than the alternative? Is it really a pragmatic choice to want bullying and fear to be the operative modes of the most powerful political leader in the world? Or is that just gender-defensiveness and male pride, a desire for aggression and domination to always have center stage in every facet of life and culture?
The gender gap between Trump and Harris is stark. The percentages are mirror images: women support Harris 53–36%, and men support Trump 53%-37%. Conservative pundits have taken to questioning Tim Walz’s masculinity, with Tucker Carlson saying that he’s obviously gay. This should be a red flag to all the ‘pragmatic’ Trump supporters, a sickening realization that toxic masculinity is spreading inside the GOP, as major changes in demographics and culture shut off other avenues of traditional conservative support. Is that really what you want for the Republican party, for it to become a shrinking Masada of disgruntled men, lashing out at everything that doesn’t rely on bullying, aggression, mockery, and hatred? Please, Pragmatists, have the courage to walk away from Trump. Be brave enough to step out from behind the crumbling wall of myth that only men can be strong, and the only way to lead is through intimidation.
Again, do Harris and the Dems have all the answers? Absolutely not. But a vote for them is truly the pragmatic choice in this election. Even if you don’t think that Trump is dangerous, and that his bluster is mostly just for show, the fact is that he will not be a stabilizing force in the completely transformed world in which we live. In his first term, Trump operated in an Obama-inherited Shangri-La, compared to what has happened since the pandemic, both nationally and internationally. No matter how much you might want it, Trump is not going to be able to snap his fingers and fix everything. And once he realizes that he doesn’t have the Midas Touch, and that his tariffs and mass deportations aren’t creating a wonderful economy for his base, then he will lash out and become even more unhinged and erratic — not the kind of scenario in which pragmatism thrives.
Coda
Okay, that’s all I got for now until after the election. No matter what happens, I hope we have a peaceful process, and that the better angels of our nature prevail, amidst the polarizing winds of division and demonization.
Originally published at http://entropolitanblog.com on October 27, 2024.
