Donald Trump is a political talent. People that hate Trump might not want to hear that, but he is. He’s a lot more of a political talent than, let’s say, Chuck Schumer. Even Chuck Schumer’s one fan would have to admit that.
He’s also more of a political talent than JD Vance. Or Kamala Harris. Or Kristi Noem. Or anyone in Congress. The last person in national politics to have his kind of political talent was Barack Obama. And boy does Trump know that. He knows, with an excruciating ache in his bones, that Obama was always more popular than Trump will ever be.
People said that Obama’s talent lay in ‘hope and change.’ But what does Trump’s talent come from? Some people would say things like ‘hate and racism’. But that’s not where his talent lies. Someone with Trump’s political talent would succeed just as well with a Bernie Sanders policy agenda (maybe better).
So what does Trump offer his acolytes?
Trump People and their personality traits
There are a number of theories that claim his hold on politics can be laid in the personality traits of his MAGAts. And I agree that certain personality traits can make a person more likely to gravitate toward Trump. I’ll just highlight a few.
For instance, Trump clearly has problems with emotional regulation and difficulty thinking clearly and making calm decisions. He displays obvious vulnerability when criticized by getting all stressed out and flying off the handle. His followers are likely to have similar feelings of vulnerability. They don’t have all the rest of his problems but Trump’s visible vulnerability and obvious flailing make him relatable to people who feel the same way. Like they are flailing. And vulnerable, confused, stressed, and helpless in the face of an economic environment that is stacked against them.
Trump the Bigly Extrovert
Trump is also an obvious extrovert, with the good and bad that goes with that. Trump’s rather gaudy form of extroversion rewards a desire common to many. The desire to belong to a large social group that doesn’t rely on closeness or deep relationships or affinity. Trump offers his followers a community of fellow Trumpers. The community comes complete with merch and visible displays of belonging.
One thing that extroversion often correlates with is a greater desire for external validation. Extroverts often look to others for information, especially information about themselves. Trump has that characteristic, but so do many of his followers. The Trump ‘cult’, as some call it, definitely offers that external validation. To be a little more specific, being MAGA offers people the feeling that THEY ARE NOT ALONE. That’s very important to many people, maybe even most people.
But Trump appeals to more than a simple human desire for belonging. He also displays certain values that appeal to some personality types. Extroverts often tend to value assertiveness and speed. Trump is both unusually assertive and unusually speedy. Trump is also lavishly positive – about himself and to some extent his followers. People who hate Trump are well aware of his astounding negativity. But they tend to dismiss his equally astounding positivity on the subjects he has positive feelings about.
Trump and his Disagreeable Flock Of Followers
To be a hard-core Trump fan also requires a fair amount (or maybe a large amount) of disagreeableness. His most avid fans do not believe that most people are fair, trustworthy, good, or honest. Trump validates these beliefs both by telling audiences how bad other people are and by being consistently unfair, untrustworthy, dishonest, and downright bad. Paradoxically, these people find Trump more trustworthy because he’s so consistently untrustworthy!
By the same token, people who are suspicious of others and believe it is prudent to lie to protect themselves can gravitate toward Trump because he relentlessly lies to people! Ironically, because they relate to his lies, they tend to believe he will not lie to them. Because why would he need to? They’re his fans.
Trump also appeals to people who are suspicious of cooperation. I often think Trump is the ultimate champion of international non-cooperation arrangements. Again, perhaps ironically, this makes it very difficult for people to um, cooperate with him, even if they think they are working for him.
And, to be fair, his followers are so non-cooperative that they wouldn’t cooperate with him when he told them to get a COVID vaccine. Non-cooperation is, in general, not an effective strategy for accomplishing many things beyond resistance to change, but his followers do find it enjoyable!
On another front, some people find immodesty unseemly. I am one of those people. Trump followers are not those people. For reasons that will remain a mystery to me, the sight of endless garish buildings blazoned TRUMP do not make these people want to turn away and puke.
Obviously, Trump followers also place a low value on mercy, but a high value of fairness – for themselves. They also have a high attachment, as many people do, to being perceived as right.
Trump People and the ‘Wrong Stuff’
The desire to be right is unfortunately paired in some people (many people actually) with a pronounced sensation of not having the right stuff themselves. Trump gives every impression of not having the right stuff, and yet he does achieve some things and tries to achieve many more. Trump allows his own ‘wrong stuff’ followers to vicariously enjoy his accomplishments and thereby at least partially counteract their own deficits and defeats. One way to look at it is that to his fans, Trump is always (in spite of his wealth and endless bragging), the underdog taking on people better than him. Appealing.
Trump is also obviously disorganized and enormously scattered in his thinking and attention. Which makes him attractive to other people whose thinking is disorganized and at least somewhat scattered.
Trump is also demonstrably lazy. He makes no real attempt to strive for excellence – preferring instead to simply declare himself excellent. Again, highly relatable to people who simply do not wish to strive for excellence. Indeed, Trump’s entire agenda of Make America Great Again is to make sure America strives for nothing more ambitious than mediocrity, and even mediocrity is a stretch in many cases.
Next up – low self-discipline. Trump does have an area of excellence in terms of superlatively low self-discipline. He doesn’t follow through on his promises. He doesn’t complete his objectives, even things he really really really wants to do – like winning the 2020 presidential election.
It’s not that he forgets what he wants to accomplish, it’s that he fails. He is actually quite good at failing. And this is another thing that endears him to his fans. People who feel like failures, perhaps legitimately, can glory in the ascendance of someone who fails as often and as badly as they do.
Trump’s appeal to certain devotees doesn’t necessarily revolve around policy positions; those are apt change with head-spinning rapidity. A big part of Trump’s political appeal lies in personality traits. Absurdly, in personality traits that are subject to criticism and disapproval in the real world. Personality traits that make people unlikable but that plenty of us have.
We all have at least of some of these attributes at least some of the time. But for some people, not that a big a percentage of the population, but a lot of people, Trump is profoundly relatable, not as a winner, but as a loser. And they want to keep cheering him on as long as he retains that loser affect. The moment he stops losing his shit every time someone calls him out – that’s when he stops being their hero.
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