Trump Supporters Are Not Stupid or Evil.

Neither are Hillary supporters.

I find it profoundly difficult to relate to the motivations that drive Trump supporters to support Trump, just as I find it profoundly easy to relate to the motivations that drive Hillary supporters to support Hillary.

As a Canadian, my ideology falls somewhere between NDP and the Liberals in most matters and I tend to disagree with the Conservatives. As a person who does his level best to make decisions based on the weight of evidence – as a skeptic – I tend to end up with the Liberals. In the last few decades they’ve started to take a more directly evidence based approach to governance, and Trudeau’s Liberal’s platform made that a promise.

Now you know my biases. Let’s look at the claim I make in the title and subtitle from an evidence-based behavioural sciences point of view.

In the more liberal/democrat/socialist forums I frequent, I often see claims that can be paraphrased as “Trump supporters are uneducated and stupid. Hillary supporters are educated and intelligent.” For example, one person noted:

…most people [here] are more progressive (democrat based) … because the intelligence level [here] is higher than … Trump fans [I know].

I call this the Stupid or Evil Bias. It is simplified heuristic for the Fundamental Attribution Error, What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI) and a host of related biases and logical fallacies. It describes a basic aspect of human nature: we assume that we understand the motivations of the people around us, and that unlike MY behaviours, YOUR behaviours come from a dark place.

This brings us to the delightful and plausible narrative that most Trump supporters are less educated white men – where ‘less educated’ means stupid and ‘white men’ are evil. Despite the reality that the Trump supporters I know personally are generally intelligent and caring people who genuinely demonstrate their intelligence and care does not alter my automatic gut reaction. My guts want Trump supporters to be stupid or evil (or both) because it is so difficult for me to relate to their motivations. For people I know and like I can just add “…except for you” to my gut reaction, and everything in my head feels internally consistent.

That’s some good doublethink right there. It eliminates the cognitive dissonance of mutually contradictory ideas so I don’t have to think about them any more.

In other words, the reality is somewhat different.

To be completely clear: I am not saying Trump supporters are the intelligencia of America, or that they are all good people, or that none are bigots, any more than I’m saying they are. If the polling is at all accurate, the demographics of Trump supporters are at the intersection of several characteristics, that include ‘white’ and ‘limited post-secondary education’, with the frequent addition of ‘male’. Having that cluster of traits makes it very easy to form a compelling narrative about who those people are.

Note that exactly the same process exists for Hillary supporters and for Trump supporters and [INSERT CANDIDATE NAME] supporters because – in a surprise twist – it turns out they were all humans all along! Trump supporters can and have invented a compelling narrative about Hillary supporters.

The thing is, these narratives we invent are coincident to the demographic trends but they are not the cause of the demographic trends. The demographics are an effect of deeper motivations that drive individual and group behaviours. You don’t support [CANDIDATE] because you’re part of [DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP]. You’re part of that group because the people in that group tend to value the same things the same way you do.

You don’t support [CANDIDATE] because you’re part of [DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP]. You’re part of that group because the people in that group tend to value the same things the same way you do.

This means the question to ask is not “In what ways are Trump supporters stupid, evil, or both?” The question is “What do Trump supporters value?”

In political discussions it’s very easy to confuse ‘value’ and ‘values’ so I’m going to use more specific terms that have well understood behavioural consequences: loss and gain.

The Politics of Loss and Gain

If we substitute loss and gain for ‘value’ in our question above, we come to an interesting place. We can ask,

• What have Trump supporters already lost?
• What do Trump supporters expect to lose?
• What have Trump supporters already gained?
• What do Trump supporters expect to gain?

Loss and gain are potent motivators of human behaviour, but they are not at all equal motivators. In simple terms, “losses loom larger than gains” (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). This is called “loss aversion” in prospect theory; I use “gain attraction” to describe the pleasure of gaining.

These are a fairly basic element of human nature, baked into our humanity at a foundational level. It is something humans can learn to compensate for but not something that humans can change about ourselves.

In the realm of politics, this means a candidate can quickly gather support by appealing to loss aversion – which is what Trump has done.

It isn’t that Trump has appealed to fear. It’s that one way to express loss aversion is through fear.

It isn’t that Trump has appealed to anger. It’s that one way loss aversion is expressed is though anger.

Fear and anger are not the only ways that people respond to potential loss and to losing, but they are common and deeply ingrained in human nature.[1]

Trump is providing certainty – whether it is based in fact or not – to alleviate and counter the fear and anger people feel. This strategy also provides a nucleation point for action.

Coming all the way back to the demographics of Trump supporters, it appears that they are people who are experiencing or expecting a particular suite of losses, and that Trump is providing certainty in the face of those losses. Those losses tend to be experienced by less educated white men, but the demographics are mostly caused by the losses, not the other way around.

Powerful Strategy, Dangerous Execution

This is a very dangerous game in my opinion, but not because it’s a bad strategy. It’s because of the kinds of certainty Trump is providing. Saying Hillary will eliminate the second amendment (a guaranteed loss) and that there is always the “second amendment remedy” to a Hillary presidency (a way reduce impact to zero) are examples. One is a lie. The other is a thinly veiled appeal to assassination.

This, by the way, is the foundation of my belief that he is not fit for office. My abhorrence of Trump lies in how he is executing on a sound strategy, not in the strategy itself.[2]

I’m comfortable saying I respect the strategy but not the implementation because Hillary is also using loss aversion to gather support. Her implementation is essentially to let Trump talk and then say “OMFG WTF?!” while staring in slack jawed shock at his picture, but in this election that seems to be enough. She doesn’t really need to whip people up into thinking that Trump is a loss to be avoided. Trump is polarizing enough to do that himself.

In this election cycle, Hillary’s approach looks like it is motivating a broader cross section of the American population, if the news and polling are at all accurate.[3] The Republicans who are repudiating Trump and holding their noses to vote Hillary are responding to this appeal.

Gain Attraction

We asked four questions about Trump supporter’s motivations up above, and this essay doesn’t answer two of those questions. That’s because I haven’t been able to wrap my head around what Trump supporters have gained, or expect to gain.

The Democrats, on the other hand, are making a big play with this weaker motivator. Gain attraction is significantly less powerful than loss aversion, so in practice it is quite difficult to offer up potential gains that are large enough to overcome the behaviours motivated by potential losses. There is not enough HOPE in the world to change the behaviours of a person strongly motivated by real and potential loss.

Gain attraction is still powerful, and I personally think it is a necessary part of effective political action. A good politician uses loss aversion to push people away from the state they’re in, and gain attraction to pull them in to a better state.

Are you a Trump supporter? I would appreciate any answers you might provide to the four questions posed above. I know you’re not stupid or evil, any more that Hillary supporters are stupid or evil. I’d like to understand your motivations better so I can teach my guts that lesson too.