The Coddling of the Trumpian Mind

A popular theory that’s been advanced for the past five years by many well-intentioned people, including some good friends for whom I have the utmost respect, holds that essentially we shouldn’t mock or belittle Trump supporters, or treat them with contempt; that they’re just people with different views and valid concerns; and that we must try harder to “reach out” and “bridge the gap” by understanding where they’re coming from, and why they might have chosen to enthusiastically embrace the vilest, most destructive fascist threat of our lifetime. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton was roundly criticized from all corners for dismissing many as a “basket of deplorables”, because by saying that, these otherwise “very fine people” were suddenly and magically transformed overnight into nasty racist imbeciles. According to this theory, it’s ultimately our fault that these people were reluctantly driven to cheer on a monster, because we had been too dismissive of their struggles, too unwilling to hear them out with an open mind and address their concerns, so they felt abandoned and had no other recourse.

I would like to advance an alternative theory: that the real problem is that we haven’t been treating them with enough contempt. That we’ve already gone too far overboard in trying to understand and listen to them, that we’ve made a fatal mistake in dignifying their idiotic “concerns” by deeming them worthy of a moment’s consideration. And I don’t believe that we haven’t been “listening” enough: on the contrary, for the past 5 years we have been inundated with dozens and dozens of articles where untold thousands of Trump supporters have been interviewed and shared their “thoughts”. No other population on Earth, in fact, has been more thoroughly listened to; we have indeed been subject to a veritable avalanche of their deep thoughts, and it always turns out to be the same old inane bullshit. Their “concerns” are not valid because they are almost always based on outright falsehoods or bigotry or ignorance or insane conspiracy theories. I’m not just generalizing here: I’ve analyzed every single statement I’ve heard from Trump supporters over the last five years, and not once have I found anything that is based on any objectively real phenomenon.

Consequently, the very worst thing we can possibly to do is to reach out and try to take their “concerns” seriously: it only serves to legitimize and normalize pernicious falsehoods that should never be granted any degree of legitimacy. That’s why it’s so important to respond with contempt; to belittle and mock them; to ostracize and exclude them from our social gatherings (once we eventually start having those again); to refuse them service at our businesses and workplaces; and to generally de-legitimize them in every possible way. I’m not saying that out of my own distaste for them, I’m saying that as a vital matter of public safety. One of the reasons there’s recently been a resurgence in outright nazism is that, unlike past decades following WWII, we began to ease up on the intensity of repulsion expressed toward nazis… increasingly, our own commitment to open-mindedness and tolerance of “other viewpoints” left us too hamstrung to effectively contain them, granting them more breathing room to emerge and pollute the body politic once again. Now nazis feel comfortable enough to march openly in the streets, while we agonize over whether it’s “ethical” to punch one of them in the head while they’re being interviewed by a TV crew. Always remember: the nazis aren’t going to play on our terms, or abide by our ethical standards. So we need not apply any to them, in turn.

Some have argued that we shouldn’t hold Trump supporters so personally responsible for their moral choices, because they may not have had access to good education, which in some cases may be a factor (though it seems quite a few hail from relatively affluent neighborhoods with decently-funded schools); but still, there’s a distinction between being misinformed and being malicious. I don’t think many will “come around” if only we made more effort to “educate” them; it’s doubtful they will be receptive to anything we offer anyway. They are resolutely impervious to objective facts, appeals to reason or logic, and I’m not sure that they even share the same fundamental values that most of us do. Some have argued that they’re just hapless chuckleheads who’ve been brainwashed by a steady diet of Fox News and right-wing talk radio, which indeed is often the case. But it’s not like they’ve been unwillingly strapped into a couch and subjected to some elaborate mind-control apparatus. Propaganda is effective when it tells people what they already want to hear, and then expands upon it. It’s very rare for propaganda to completely turn good people into bad people; rather, it activates and mobilizes people’s pre-existing badness. The original Nazis didn’t invent anti-semitism in Germany; it had long been present in society there, and so the propaganda only amplified something that already existed, and focused it toward its horrific goal.

That’s why we ought to abandon the seemingly-noble but futile and counter-productive goal of trying to “change their minds”. Because the short answer is: you probably can’t. After all, it's not possible to change someone’s mind if they’re not using it in the first place. Trumpism doesn’t come from the mind, it comes from the gut, and from a heart of darkness. No one arrives at Trumpism through a process of careful reasoning; it is, by its very nature, incoherent and defies rational comprehension. Ultimately, Trump supporters exhibit all the hallmarks of a fanatical religious cult: the conflation of myths and reality; the worship of a larger-than-life charismatic figurehead; the apocalyptic language; the hatred and suspicion of anything outside the cult. Which is why, if you were about to object that I’m being too “exclusionary” and making this an “us against them” scenario, I can only answer that they’ve already done that; I’m merely describing what’s already the case. Perhaps it’s still possible to reach some of them, but I suspect that percentage would be very small, like the low single digits. And you would need the extensive training and expertise of a cult deprogrammer, which is why I won’t attempt it, and don’t recommend anyone else try.

Am I saying they’re just bad people? Well, in a sense, yes. I don’t think any person is intrinsically either 100% “good” or “bad”; rather, our goodness or badness is a constantly-evolving balancing act shaped by the choices we make each day. So when a person continually says bad things, and does bad things, and supports bad people and bad ideas, at a certain point their moral balance sheet will display “BAD” in bold type. That’s why it’s a mistake to minimize this profound moral antipathy by depicting them merely as having “different viewpoints”. It’s why we shouldn’t be “respectfully” “debating” with incels, nazis, anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, and other malignant entities. We already “understand” them well enough, the same way we “understand” a snarling rabid jackal lunging at our throat: it’s a mortal threat. Look at the attached photos, and ask yourself honestly whether you care to “reach out” and “bridge the gap” with any of these cretins.

So please, I beg of you: stop thinking of Trump supporters merely as misguided people we need to reach out to and understand. And start thinking of them as dangerous enemies we must utterly defeat.

Our very lives depend on it.