The Faces Behind Donald Trump
I’ve been watching Trump campaign rallies now for over 2 years. They all follow the same basic formula: the religious opening speakers, the “Drain the Swamp” signs, the red hats, the bizarre and borderline incoherent improvised speech, the “Lock Her Up” and “Build the Wall” chants, boasting about the crowd, railing against the media. The rambling, venomous speech delivered in Phoenix last week was no different, even though the speaker himself is now the President of the United States and not an inexperienced fringe political candidate.
I find the content & tone of those speeches to be terrifying, shameful, and dangerous to the fabric of our country. But what truly scares me, what shakes me to my core, is watching the faces in the crowd behind Donald Trump.

The range of emotion, and the intensity of it, is dumbfounding. At any given moment, they will laugh at comments disparaging the free press, and at the next, they’re screaming, red in the face, veins bulging out, chanting for the President to jail his former political opponent. They raise their hands in praise of the President’s comments about “our history” and “our heritage” being taken away by removing Confederate monuments; comments which mirror long standing white supremacist talking points verbatim. He’s no longer using dog whistles, he’s using air horns, and these faces revel in the sound.
These faces are the faces of Americans across the country. These faces are the faces of librarians, school teachers, police officers, corporate executives, blue collar workers, veterinarians, mothers, fathers, school children, lawyers, and doctors. They’re our neighbors. And they’ve allowed themselves to be captivated & enraptured by Donald Trump’s dark ideology of “us vs. them”. They’ve been hypnotized through a dizzying & powerful combination of elements, many of them as old as our nation itself, and others that are unique to Donald Trump.
The Elements Unrelated to Donald Trump
Long & persistent exposure to America’s racial bias and revisionist history to erase the inhumane treatment of black people, women, Muslims, Jews, & immigrants (including but not limited to Italian, Irish, Chinese, Korean, Mexican, and Japanese immigrants).
A media environment that allows you to “pick your truth” and isolate yourself to that bubble. Starting with networks like Fox News that have continued to become more and more disconnected from reality, to fringe organizations like Breitbart and InfoWars that optimize for the dangerous cocktail of clicks and rage.
A deadlocked and highly partisan political climate in Washington DC and state capitols, largely (but not exclusively) brought on by Congressional Republicans after Barack Obama’s 2008 win, in which then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared that the Republican party’s primary objective was to block and obstruct anything within the incoming President’s agenda.
A rapidly evolving economy that threatens millions of jobs that are no longer as valuable or sustainable given technological trends and economic development. Compound that with an increasing wage gap between 99% of Americans and the top 1%, and the largest economic depression in American history since the 1920s.
A post-9/11 worldview that puts the entire world under the persistent threat of terror by political and religious extremists. This heightens our sense of exclusion and isolationism.
The Elements Related to Donald Trump
The thick veneer of wealth and success that implies a high level of intelligence, competence, and foresight (none of which are really present).
A decades-long brand-building campaign that has elevated the Trump brand (and Donald Trump himself) to become a household name aligned with entertainment, success, and indulgence.
His unique, patented (“You’re fired!) brash style that appeals to our most basic and darkest instincts of saying whatever is on our minds regardless of the impact it may have. In particular, his ability to assign worth to individuals purely based on whether they are beneficial or harmful to him personally and treating them accordingly by either showering them with praise or disposing of them through sheer humiliation and brute verbal force. In Donald Trump’s mind, individuals do not have inherent worth and value, their value is only relative to what they can do for him.
His brazen willingness to leverage the elements listed above to appeal to our deepest fears, insecurities, and prejudices. His complete shamelessness in stirring up a crowd into a froth of rage and cynicism.
So why do these faces behind Donald Trump scare and concern me much more than the hypnotist himself?
They’re being duped by a con man that they will ultimately outlast, but whose downfall will trigger an even bigger, more dangerous divide in this country.
They’re being duped by a con man…
These faces are part of the single greatest con ever pulled by a single person in our country’s history. Donald Trump has made billions out of tricking people to trust him, and then turning around and delivering nothing. He has promised these individuals safety, prosperity, and unity, and now that he has the power to deliver, he spends his time starting real and fake wars over Twitter, watching cable news, and playing golf. These individuals, like the investors in Trump casinos and students at Trump University, are being duped.
…that they will ultimately outlast…
If Donald Trump continues down the path he’s traveling (and there is zero indication that he won’t), I seriously question whether he will continue to occupy the Oval Office in a year’s time. But these people will continue to elect the next person to occupy that job. These individuals will continue to be part of the fabric in our communities, as they should be, but if they stay in this rage-filled trance, they will carry on Donald Trump’s agenda that has already caused and will continue to cause irreparable damage to our society.
…but whose downfall will trigger an even bigger, more dangerous divide in this country.
Donald Trump has laid down a trap, and we’re either damned to set it off, or doomed to suffer the consequences of leaving it untouched. By positioning the media, the government establishment, and “liberals” as the enemies of “the real America” and their leader (himself), he has created the dynamics of dangerous clash in the case of his removal from office. He has discredited anything and anyone who could possibly take away his power, and by doing so, has justified the harassment and violence (physical, psychological, and digital) that his base would inflict on those individuals and institutions.
So, what can we do?
Recovering from our current fever of the body politic requires as comprehensive & elaborate of a plan as the con that originally inflicted it.
There’s no easy fix.
2018 midterm elections are important. The Russia investigation is important. But neither of these things will fundamentally fix the core problem we’re facing. In fact, if either one of those events leads to Donald Trump’s removal from office, they would trigger the trap he has laid down and likely make things much worse before they get better.
Bottom Up.
Since there’s no easy answer, all we’re left with is hard work. We must begin to rebuild whatever faith and trust we can between fellow citizens. This has never been a nation to hold hands from sea to shining sea, but we can all acknowledge that we’ve experienced times of more national unity than this. The government cannot do this, Donald Trump has made sure of it with through his entire campaign and presidency. The people must first trust each other before we can rebuild a government of, by, and for the people.
We do this by having tough conversations. By traveling to places we wouldn’t have considered before. By reevaluating our old factions and cliques in order to erase the artificial battlelines drawn by Trump’s “us vs. them” mentality. We must prioritize and not fight a war on every front. We must make what may feel like unlikely alliances for the sake of moving forward.
We start from scratch and find common ground on the things we all believe in. We all want to be safe, we all want our families and our children to grow in a country with opportunity. We all want to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
Top Down.
The work of rebuilding this nation goes hand in hand with expecting more of our elected leaders across both parties.
Democrats must come together and stop rehashing the primaries of 2 years ago. The reality is that we’re very far from where we want to be in this country, and fighting over where that hypothetical place is doesn’t bring us any closer.
Republicans must hold Donald Trump accountable. His hypnosis has had its way with many members of the Republican party, and the few who rejected Trump’s hateful ideology have a responsibility to snap their fellow Conservatives out of it and begin to take back their party. Donald Trump does not represent small government, individual freedom, and limit spending. This is not who you want speaking for you and for our country.
Holding these individuals accountable means making calls, showing up to town halls, withholding your donations, and making your demands known.
This is on us now. It is on all of our hands to make sure Donald Trump stands alone in his bigotry, and that the faces behind him only reflect a resolve to fight against hatred, lies, and abuse.
