What they find in Trump

One of the great topics at NewGathering for the last eight or so years has been: What is it that those voters see in Donald Trump?!

Today, New York Times columnist David French gives an insightful answer: Trump voters find something in the MAGA brother- and sister-hood that is not visible to those of us outside the club: joy.

In today's newsletter, French demonstrates how valuable he is as one with a foot planted in two different worlds.  On the one hand, he is an Evangelical Christian who lives in the heartland of MAGA Americana, and so understands that culture very well,  On the other hand, he is an Ivy League educated person who is comfortable moving and communicating in that milieu.  Consequently, French often serves as a sort of mediator, or translator: explaining Evangelical culture to the rest of us or vice-versa.

Thus, today French shares a certain contradiction, or perhaps it is a paradox, about Trump loyalists among American voters: they are simultaneously cheerful and apocalyptic.  As an example, he offers a recent tweet from first-term Tennessee congressman Andy Ogles.  As French notes, "The text of the greeting is remarkable only if you don't live in MAGA-land:"

Hey guys, Congressman Andy Ogles here, wishing you a happy and blessed Fourth of July. Hey, remember our Founding Fathers. It’s we the people that are in charge of this country, not a leftist minority. Look, the left is trying to destroy our country and our family, and they’re coming after you. Have a blessed Fourth of July. Be safe. Have fun. God bless America.

French summarizes the message thusly: They’re coming for your family! Have a great day!

Rather than considering this rather disjointed collection of sentiments to be an exception, French finds it positively typical of what characterizes MAGA.  He writes,

take the Trump rally, the signature event of this political era. If you follow the rallies via Twitter or mainstream newscasts, you see the anger, but you miss the fun. When I was writing for The Dispatch, one of the best pieces we published was a report by Andrew Egger in 2020 about the “Front Row Joes,” the Trump superfans who follow Trump from rally to rally the way some people used to follow the Grateful Dead. Egger described the Trump rally perfectly: “For enthusiasts, Trump rallies aren’t just a way to see a favorite politician up close. They are major life events: festive opportunities to get together with like-minded folks and just go crazy about America and all the winning the Trump administration’s doing.”

Or go to a Southeastern Conference football game. The “Let’s Go Brandon” (or sometimes, just “[expletive] Joe Biden”) chant that arises from the student section isn’t delivered with clenched fists and furious anger, but rather through smiles and laughs. The frat bros are having a great time. The consistent message from Trumpland of all ages is something like this: “They’re the worst, and we’re awesome. Let’s party, and let’s fight.”

French then asks the million-dollar question: "Why do none of your arguments against Trump penetrate this mindset?"  He answers himself:

The Trumpists have an easy answer: You’re horrible, and no one should listen to horrible people. Why were Trumpists so vulnerable to insane stolen-election theories? Because they know that you’re horrible and that horrible people are capable of anything, including stealing an election.

At the same time, their own joy and camaraderie insulates them against external critiques that focus on their anger and cruelty. Such charges ring hollow to Trump supporters, who can see firsthand the internal friendliness and good cheer that they experience when they get together with one another. They don’t feel angry — at least not most of the time. They are good, likable people who’ve just been provoked by a distant and alien “left” that many of them have never meaningfully encountered firsthand.

French isn't a MAGA true believer himself.  He knows, better than most, what it is to be the target of Trump followers' threats and attempts to intimidate.  He knows that it is not all joy in MAGA-land.  Anyone who spends more than 10 minutes consuming right-wing talk radio or similar Trump-oriented media understands that keeping its listeners/viewers/readers perpetually keyed up in a state of rage is a critical ingredient in the MAGA phenomenon.

Still, I suspect French is right that within-the-bubble camaraderie is invisible to those of us on the other side of the soapy wall.   And it seems likely he is correct that it is the element of joy, not the fear, anger and loathing of the "other", that accounts for MAGA imperviousness to anything and everything that would tend to topple their hero.

French goes on to draw some interesting lessons: for example, he attributes Ron DeSantis's inability to catch on with Republicans nationally to DeSantis's evident joy deficit.  Sourpusses usually aren't electoral winners.  

He also thinks that many MAGA followers are helped to sustain themselves as true believers by leading insulated lives.  Many of them are not exposed too much to the people they deplore (i.e., people like us).  In this regard, French observes:

Evangelicals are a particularly illustrative case. About half of self-identified evangelicals now attend church monthly or less often. They have religious zeal, but they lack religious community. So they find their band of brothers and sisters in the Trump movement. Even among actual churchgoing evangelicals, political alignment is often so important that it’s hard to feel a true sense of belonging unless you’re ideologically united with the people in the pews around you.

During the Trump years, I’ve received countless email messages from distraught readers that echo a similar theme: My father (or mother or uncle or cousin) is lost to MAGA. They can seem normal, but they’re not, at least not any longer. It’s hard for me to know what to say in response, but one thing is clear: You can’t replace something with nothing. And until we fully understand what that “something” is — and that it includes not only passionate anger but also very real joy and a deep sense of belonging — then our efforts to persuade are doomed to fail.

I find this analysis pretty astute.  I'll push it a bit farther: people who are not under the Trump spell occasionally will remark that his followers are a cult.  Perhaps that observation isn't so casual.  The incident of the Hebrews in the desert illustrates the eternal truth that, if people believe God has left them, they'll build a golden idol of their own.  MAGA can be disconcertingly like that.