Donald Trump’s Emotional Appeal
When political operatives speak about how to win elections, they’ll tell you that voters don’t make rational choices about who they support, based on things like a candidate’s tax or education plan; they make emotional choices. Campaign veterans emphasize the importance of candidates connecting with voters. Chuck Rocha, who helped run Bernie Sanders’ campaign, said that months before he engaged Latinx voters on issues like Medicare For All, the initial outreach was all about Sanders’ immigrant roots, to create empathy and common identity between the candidate’s and voters’ experiences.
Donald Trump also creates an emotional connection. Or rather, he taps into a deep emotional well in his supporters. He targets primarily men and speaks and acts in a way that reaches the insecurities about masculinity that they can’t properly express but drive their desire to seem strong and in control.
We’ve seen over and over again that the key to Trump’s unwavering support from his followers is that he gives people permission to allow the worst angels of our nature to run unshackled. He has allowed the rich in American society to embrace their wealth guilt-free, without the need to perform the noblesse oblige role of past decades. He has allowed men with guns, in and out of uniform, to enact their fetishes of dominance and control over protestors, disagreeable state governors, and democracy itself. And he has allowed white Americans more broadly to joyously embrace the indifference to the suffering of others that has always been the price of their comfort and presumed hegemony over the world that they can see.
While undeniably toxic, each of these things are acts of emotional validation. Donald Trump lets men be what our toxic patriarchal culture tells them over and over again they should be. Brené Brown, the esteemed author and academic who writes about navigating shame and vulnerability, noted in a TED Talk several years ago that, “Shame, for women, is this web of unattainable, conflicting, competing expectations about who [they’re] supposed to be…For men, shame is not a bunch of competing, conflicting expectations. Shame is one: do not perceived as weak.”
This type of appeal extends to men of many backgrounds. We’ve seen notable Trump endorsements from several Black hip-hop artists like Ice Cube and L’il Wayne. Author Brittney Cooper has explained that despite his obvious racism, these men are “actually enamoured with the kind of masculinity that Trump performs.” Rocha has noted that in focus groups he has seen Latino men identify with Trump’s persona of a bully and buy in to the image of Joe Biden as weak and old.
There is a narrative of the early history of the 21st century that portrays it to be the death of toughness. In 2010, in the aftermath of The Great Recession, an Atlantic article by Hanna Rosin famously proclaimed “the End of Men.” Around the same time, American conservatives lost their mind when Barack Obama embarked on an international junket to repair relationships with other countries left frayed by the George W. Bush administration, calling it an “apology tour” (nevermind the fact that Republican American presidents had for years been able to keep the country’s international allies happy).
The term “Culture War” has been part of the American political landscape for decades, as Republicans increasingly used issues like abortion and gay marriage to animate their voters. As Americans have by and large swung to a more socially liberal frame of mind on such matters, conservative politicians in the last decade have shifted their culture-based rhetoric almost entirely to the “pussification” of America. (It should be noted that while the rhetoric may have shifted, conservative legislators have continued their assault on reproductive rights unabated, culminating in October’s confirmation of the proudly anti-choice justice Amy Coney Barrett to an already conservative Supreme Court.).
Donald Trump never acknowledges a mistake. He never concedes a point. During his 2016 campaign for the Republican nomination he even took the time to impress upon voters that there was no problem with his own physical endowment. In an era that has (rightly) questioned almost every signifier of what it has traditionally meant to be “a man”, it seems many men find reassurance and comfort in this refusal to acknowledge any weakness or shortcoming.
It must be clear that this bullheadedness in Trump stems from intense insecurity and weakness. It echoes the source of almost all performative male machismo: the fear of appearing weak, as Brené Brown has identified. In this many men would similarly recognize themselves in Trump, if they looked past the bluster.
It should also be noted that he never manifests strength himself. No one is afraid of Trump. In his time as president, he has not cowed a single fellow head of state, except to the extent that they feel they need to navigate his lack of predictability and unwillingness to listen to an argument containing a scintilla of nuance.
Nothing about Trump’s behaviour suggests that, in his own mind, his strength stems from his actions or anything about him specifically; it stems from his station as a rich white male; inherent characteristics which should naturally invite deference. He reserves his most offended tones for people who step out of this order by criticizing him: women, particularly women of colour, commonly referring to them as “nasty.” His belief in masculine strength plays out not in overt displays of his own power and prowess, but in his absolute dread of appearing weak.
The filtering of this dread from Trump down to his voting base, and the state and congressional Republicans in between them, has allowed the most basic individual precaution during a once-in-a-century pandemic, mask wearing, to become a partisan signifier. Trumpists from every walk of life admonish any sensible effort to prevent the spread of Covid-19, saying “we can’t let fear dominate our lives”. The coronavirus is of course not deterred by a person’s attitudes or performative bravery. But that has not stopped the patriarchal impulse to label illness as a moral or constitutional failing of the Weak. And so we have seen untold numbers of Americans animated by Trump’s permissive approach to performative strength run heedlessly into high risk activities, including but not limited to attending Trump’s rallies, spreading infection wherever they go.
Boiled down, Trump’s core message is “without strength you are nothing”. That is why Trump makes little effort to hide his admiration for strongman world leaders like Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin, or Kim Il Sung of North Korea, while showing open disdain for democratic leaders like Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron. Gaining or maintaining power through winning an election is a good ego boost. But it also requires engaging in politics: compromise, strategy, convincing voters. To someone who believes that the strong should ultimately be in charge, acknowledging the need to compromise means acknowledging vulnerability. And vulnerability repulses him.
And now the resonance of Trump’s emotional focus on strength and crippling fear of weakness is about to be directed towards an all-out effort to hold on to power as states start counting election ballots. Republicans, taking their cue from Trump are openly and unapologetically strategizing to maintain Trump as President through voter suppression and interfering with the counting of ballots. They speak to the press about it without bothering to resort to euphemism, as they once did, in the time before Trump freed them of their need to genuflect towards the norms of the American republic.
And while the Republican establishment seeks to attack and delegitimize the election, Trump’s fans have followed his urging to “LIBERATE” states and “stand by” during voting. Trump flag-adorned pick up trucks have blocked highways and attempted to run the Biden campaign bus off the road in Texas. Trumpists appeared at many early polling sites armed, waving flags and shouting slogans, while demanding their right to carry firearms inside polling places.
The denizens of Trumpland, including the man himself, are unconcerned with appearances of propriety or legitimacy. Appeals to proclaimed American values will fall on disinterested ears. Norms are for the Weak. As is concession.
To a man who holds democratically elected leaders in near-contempt, and who prizes strength as the most crucial personality trait, there is no value in contesting an election on its traditional terms. The person, or really the man, who deserves to be in power is the man who can hold power by whatever means necessary, whether its employing a court packed with acquiescent judges to block proper ballot counting, or directing mobs of supporters to intimidate and assault voters. Using strength and violence to steal an election is precisely what “making America great again” means to Trumpists. Their foundational belief is that the “strong” should be in charge.
When one views the world this way, winning through force is not only to be condoned, it is a living demonstration of your fitness to hold power, and a vindication of your understanding of the ordering of the world. Most importantly, preserving Donald Trump’s status as President by bypassing democracy is a validation of the Trumpist’s emotional investment in him as an avatar of reclaimed male hegemony.
