Inside the Mind of a Trump Supporter
We’re living through the largest collective delusion in American history, aided and abetted by an entire political party
For the past two years or so, I have made a conscious effort to force myself to consume more right-wing media sources. On my commute to work, I listen to conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Buck Sexton. I read /r/conservative and other right-leaning forums on Reddit. I’ve tried harder than ever before to interact with my (rare) vocal Republican friends on Facebook, and keep an eye on what sorts of things they are posting. I do this because I, like many liberals, have often found it utterly incomprehensible that anyone can continue to support Donald Trump at this point. I do it because I want to understand what is going on in their minds.
Allow me to paint for you a rough picture of the typical worldview of many Trump Supporters.
- Please Note: These false perceptions do not accurately reflect reality
- Donald Trump is an amazing president who has accomplished a lot. He has always been fighting for the average American, in a way that no politician has ever done before.
- Trump is a political outsider, a maverick, who knows how to get things done. He tells it like it is, unlike the sugar-coated bullshit politicians usually speak.
- From day one, Trump has been ruthlessly attacked by his enemies: bitter Democrats, liberal tech companies, the deep state, and their allies in the mainstream media.
- The mainstream media can’t be trusted. They fabricate lies and distort stories just to make Trump look bad, like the Russia Impeachment Hoax — which was proven to be nothing more than a witch hunt after Trump was totally exonerated.
- Many liberals suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS). A condition which causes hysterical overreactions to every little thing he does.
- Liberals like Biden, and especially Kamala Harris, will enact a radical socialist agenda which will literally destroy this country and our way of life if they’re allowed to succeed.
- The 2020 election was fundamentally flawed and can not be trusted. There are countless examples of how it was rigged/fraudulent/corrupt.
- Donald Trump is rightfully the next president, but the election was stolen from him.
- Please Note: These false perceptions do not accurately reflect reality
What I have learned is that conservatives’ and liberals’ worldviews no longer exist in the same universe. Our view of the world is shaped by the information we consume, which has itself become so radically divergent that we are unable to agree on even the most minimal sets of verifiable facts about current events. This is problematic, as having a shared sense of reality is a prerequisite to a functional government. Our Democracy is failing, in large part due to how many Republican voters (and their elected representatives) now live in a detached, parallel universe of their own construction.
The reality schism between liberals and conservatives reached its most dangerous and frightening climax yet with the January 6th, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol by a mob of angry Trump supporters. If ever there were an occasion for some self doubt about political allegiances, it would be after an armed insurrection attempting to overthrow the government. But within hours of the Capitol riots, the right-wing mediasphere was awash with conspiracy theories that the rioters were actually secretly Antifa members disguised in Trump paraphernalia. Once again, millions of minds departed off to an alternate reality in which Trump can do no wrong, and everything bad is attributed to the radical left. This bifurcation is destroying our country, and we had better do something about it soon.
Except, there are no easy solutions. Many liberals are responding to this situation by cutting off ties with family, ending real life relationships, and deleting friends from social media. This reflex is entirely understandable — life is short and there’s only so much bullshit any of us can put up with. And yet, this impulse is all but guaranteed to exacerbate the trouble we find ourselves in. Abandoned by their liberal friends and family, Trump supporters will feel validated in their belief that they are being persecuted by the intolerant left. They will retreat to the conservative corners of their lives, where they will be exposed to even more disinformation, with even less reality-based interactions to ground them.
Another liberal impulse is to celebrate the shuttering of the social media platforms which have been responsible for the spread of disinformation and the radicalization of our neighbors. This is a necessary step, but much too little much too late for solving our current predicament. Imagine again the mind of an average Trump supporter, who subscribes to conspiracy theories about how powerful, evil forces are aligned against them. The destruction of their social media gathering places and the “censoring” of Donald Trump will be viewed as another frontal assault on their liberties, in a righteous battle against an encroaching left-wing authoritarian takeover of their country.
One thing is certain, we cannot attempt to just move on, hope for reconciliation, and proceed with the standard governing rulebook of a bygone Obama/Biden era. Given that the belief the 2020 election was fraudulent and stolen from Trump is an uncontroversial mainstream view held by tens of millions of enraged Trump supporters, this effort is doomed to fail. We’re living through a civic emergency unlike anything I have ever seen before: the largest collective delusion in American history, aided and abetted by an entire political party. The damage Republican sycophants have done to our democracy is incalculable.
At a minimum, the people responsible for the Capitol disaster must be brought to justice. This includes Donald Trump, who should immediately be removed from office. It includes Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trump’s inner circle (and several Republican representatives), who deserve to be brought up on charges of seditious conspiracy for their roles in inciting an insurrection. Yet, I can’t help but fear what is going on at this very moment in the minds of Trump supporters, living under a fog of delusion, conspiracy theories, and misguided anger. If Republican leaders end up in jail, will these troubled minds be even more likely to take up arms in response?
This is the problem. We have allowed the brainwashing of half of our population to go on unchecked for so long, and such a deep level of delusion has taken hold — thanks to the complacency of the Republican Party — that the solutions which we now desperately need will be viewed as tyrannical overreaches in the poisoned minds of the people we are trying to save.
