The Trump Phenomenon
He yells, lies, bullies, threatens, libels and his speeches have no substance. He provokes his crowds and heightens their rag; he instigates mayhem. He is never concerned about conveying interesting political rhetoric or being politically correct, rather, he attempts to thrill, agitate and be liked. Sometimes we really feel like he does not give a shit, and somehow he is only invested in escalating spite! He wears a red baseball cap that he hopes to serve as a time machine for America because let’s face it, “this country is going to hell.” According to his book “Crippled America,” it’s his duty to “Make America Great Again.” His favorite words include and repeat, “I am telling you we have no choice! We have no choice,” and they serve to explain about every one of his decisions to run for the White House. His choiceless decisions include but are not restricted to, building a wall on the border with Mexico, imposing a ban on noncitizen Muslims from entering the United States, and the list goes on. He is also the man who likes to dismiss rational discussion and points to mysterious and sinister reasons he himself cannot explain: “there is something going on.” I wonder if his vocabulary is just limited or whether his favorite genre is mystery fiction. Let’s not forget he is also the man who had no shame in discussing his anatomy during a GOP primary debate. Phew! Hard to really draw a caricature of this man, because he is his own caricature.
I can’t lie, but everytime I see an article, blog post, whatever, about Donald Trump I get very excited. He truly is a character, or shall I say “phenomenon” that will go down in my kids’ history books. The point of this article is to shed a little bit of light on what I came to understand about what type of person votes for Trump. The interest in educating myself about the Trump voter is all thanks to a satirical piece by Paul Rudnick called Mr. Everything. I won’t spoil the good read for you, but I urge you to take a look because it really is interesting. If you don’t find it interesting, at least you will get a good laugh out of it.
The question at the core of this article is “what makes Trump appeal to the public” or rather “why does he appeal to certain people and not others.” If you ever took an economics or sociology course, (or not) you probably know of the term “loss aversion.” Loss aversion was first demonstrated by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, and it refers to people’s preference in avoiding losses to acquiring gains. According to a number of socioeconomic studies, losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains. In about every single Presidential race, candidates offer optimistic solutions and potential changes to the current system; however, Mr. Trump’s peculiar use of loss aversion is unequivocal. This sense of loss is very interesting to explore especially for the Republican voters. Why would a Republican vote for Trump? In a recent study done by the Pew Center , it was indicated that 79% of those who chose the Republican side feel like they are politically at loss. You may also ask, well how about the general public? According to a RAND survey ,it is indicated that 86.5% of the people who felt like they had no political say were more likely to support Trump. According to the RAND survey, Trump also appealed to the “worried” and “the angry”, those who were dissatisfied with the current state of the economy, the current President, and many more reasons of dissatisfaction.
From the interesting approach of “loss aversion” as well as what I have read and heard over and over again, it is shocking to actually find out that most of those who voted for Trump in the primaries, and those who continue to support him, actually haven’t lost much. Yes, it is a fact that most of his voters are mostly, white working-class voters who have seen their wages remain stagnant; nevertheless, it is a wrong fact that his voters are uneducated or poorer than the average American. Yet, these voters feel like they are losers because they are continuouslyis. Trump instigates this feeling with phrases such as; “we are loosing our second amendment,” “we are loosing our jobs to the Mexicans, our money to China,” and “we are loosing everything.”
Day after day, I hope to not meet a Trump supporter because those people bring some sort of disproportion to my view of the United States and the values it was built on. It seems to me, that this country has split into a war zone between the right and the left. Something else that irritates me about Trump supporters is their use of statistical data. I am no data scientist nor am I a mathematician, but at least I know that correlation does not imply causation. Yet, those people will throw figures and numbers in your face like they know their shit, and the whole time you are picturing Professor Schwatzer yelling in your face “correlation does not imply causation,” and you just don’t know where to begin your explanation. Unfortunately, I meet people on a daily basis, here in Washington DC, who proudly support Trump. Trump, the man who claimed a judge is inapt to do his job because of his racial heritage. Trump, the man who posted a picture on twitter about Hillary Clinton with a “six-pointed star,” reading “most corrupt candidate ever.” Trump, the man who said that “the first person he will consult when President of the United States, will be himself because he is smart.” This is a true gem from the Daily Show, you should watch it.
It is always tendentious to make historical comparisons, but this rise ofnationalism in the United States as well as throughout many European countries should be a reminder of the lessons we learned in the last century. An intersting article on the New York Times discusses how Trump’s immigration plan is a reminder of Kristallnacht. Mr. Weld has compared Trump’s aggressive push for nationalism and racism to that of Hitler and Mussolini. But hey, guess what was Trump’s response was: “I don’t talk about his alcoholism, so why would he talk about my foolishly perceived fascism? There is nobody less of a fascist than Donald Trump.”
Before I let you go, because this has gotten longer than it was intended to be, I recommend you read (if you haven’t already) The Wave, a book based on a true story that took place in California. The relevance of this story to the Trump phenomenon, is that a high school history teacher, in an attempt to convey to his student what a Fascist system really is, he introduced a system that was based on “strength through discipline, community, and action.” This system ends up creating a disturbing chain of events that required an eventual intervention. It really is a fascinating story that parallels the rise of Hilter during the Third Reich. Thank you for reading this far, I hope you enjoyed it!
