Is it true Trump supporters just want a father figure?

[Sw. Vandana Jyothi]

Someone who is an authority figure? One who promises to simply take care of everything, keep us all safe, make all the decisions so no effort has to be made by the citizens? The Washington Post ran this article today and it made me stop and reflect. I've been baffled, truly baffled, trying to understand the mind- and heart-set of a person--Republican, Democrat or Independent--who can support the reelection of the current occupant of the White House.

I kept asking myself, "Why doesn't character matter to his supporters? Is it something he accomplished which allows them to turn their faces and cover their ears to his hate-filled rhetoric, his lies and bullying? Or maybe something he promised to accomplish and that hope yet lives?" No, maybe it's as simple and as complex as this article proposes. Is it that Trump supporters are basically racist like him? We might all have bias and find it hard to confess.

I'm not Trump bashing nor Trump-supporter bashing here and I don't want this thread to devolve to that. I really want to know. Please, supporters of Trump and Trumpism, if there are any of you on this forum, I really want to know. Now that you've had 4 years of him, got to know him, see him in action, please enlighten me, why doesn't it matter to you what kind of a man Trump is, i.e., his character? And why doesn't it matter to you that his actions and attitudes (and those of the silent GOP) have put this country back to the tension-filled air and upheavals of the 1960s? Why?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...oter-authoritarian-research/#comments-wrapper

*Title Edited*

 

[Cooky]

Someone who is an authority figure? One who promises to simply take care of everything, keep us all safe, make all the decisions so no effort has to be made by the citizens? The Washington Post ran this article today and it made me stop and reflect. I've been baffled, truly baffled, trying to understand the mind- and heart-set of a person--Republican, Democrat or Independent--who can support the reelection of the current occupant of the White House.

I kept asking myself, "Why doesn't character matter to his supporters? Is it something he accomplished which allows them to turn their faces and cover their ears to his hate-filled rhetoric, his lies and bullying? Or maybe something he promised to accomplish and that hope yet lives?" No, maybe it's as simple and as complex as this article proposes. Is it that Trump supporters are basically racist like him? We might all have bias and find it hard to confess.

I'm not Trump bashing nor Trump-supporter bashing here and I don't want this thread to devolve to that. I really want to know. Please, supporters of Trump and Trumpism, if there are any of you on this forum, I really want to know. Now that you've had 4 years of him, got to know him, see him in action, please enlighten me, why doesn't it matter to you what kind of a man Trump is, i.e., his character? And why doesn't it matter to you that his actions and attitudes (and those of the silent GOP) have put this country back to the tension-filled air and upheavals of the 1960s? Why?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...oter-authoritarian-research/#comments-wrapper

How is Trump authoritarian? I hate Authoritarians, so do all Trump supporters, so I'm curious where this silly notion is coming from.

 

[Cooky]

Trump supporters feel no "safety" with Trump. We want freedom, and less government in our lives. We want someone unafraid to break the chains that weaken our independence. We want a president who places American citizens above foreigners.

NAFTA made us dependent on foreign countries... We want independence.

 

[Sw. Vandana Jyothi]

How is Trump authoritarian? I hate Authoritarians, so do all Trump supporters, so I'm curious where this silly notion is coming from.

Let's make sure we're talking about the same thing, authoritarianism. And you can't realistically speak for all Trump supporters. Here's a clip from Wiki. I think this is the shoe that Trump and the GOP is trying to fit to the feet of the American people:

Authoritarianism is characterized by highly concentrated and centralized government power maintained by political repression and the exclusion of potential challengers. It uses political parties and mass organizations to mobilize people around the goals of the regime.[11] Adam Przeworski has theorized that "authoritarian equilibrium rests mainly on lies, fear and economic prosperity".[12]

Authoritarianism also tends to embrace the informal and unregulated exercise of political power, a leadership that is "self-appointed and even if elected cannot be displaced by citizens' free choice among competitors", the arbitrary deprivation of civil liberties and little tolerance for meaningful opposition.[11] A range of social controls also attempt to stifle civil society while political stability is maintained by control over and support of the armed forces, a bureaucracy staffed by the regime and creation of allegiance through various means of socialization and indoctrination.[11]

Authoritarianism is marked by "indefinite political tenure" of the ruler or ruling party (often in a one-party state) or other authority.[11] The transition from an authoritarian system to a more democratic form of government is referred to as democratization.[11]​

Trump supporters feel no "safety" with Trump. We want freedom, and less government in our lives. We want someone unafraid to break the chains that weaken our independence. We want a president who places American citizens above foreigners.

NAFTA made us dependent on foreign countries... We want independence.

See, here's where I agree with you. I feel no safety with Trump, either. In fact, I and millions and millions of other people, not just here in the States but around the world, feel threatened by him. That's a fact.

I also want freedom and less governmental interference in my life and decision-making. Now, what chains are you speaking of? What chains are binding your independence? What chains has Trump broken which freed you? Do you see any chains he's braiding without your awareness of it? Perhaps removing one but replacing it with another? Look.

 

[Sunstone]

Check out Robert Altemeyer's free ebook on the scientific study of people who follow authoritarian leaders. It's short, to the point, and written with a keen sense of humor. It will tell you everything you need to know to understand the mindset of authoritarian followers. Altemeyer was a scientist who dedicated his whole career to the study of people willing to follow the likes of a Donald Trump, and his expertise shows.

The Authoritarians.

 

[exchemist]

Trump supporters feel no "safety" with Trump. We want freedom, and less government in our lives. We want someone unafraid to break the chains that weaken our independence. We want a president who places American citizens above foreigners.

NAFTA made us dependent on foreign countries... We want independence.

Any treaty reduces your independence, as it involving agreeing to do or not do certain things in a certain way.

Treaties are just agreements between countries. If not entered into under duress, they are normally a source of advantage to both parties. But yes, they put some constraints, usually very small, on national autonomy.

Normally, that's a sensible thing to do. You do it yourself whenever you join a society - or even when you use Google. There are conditions attached to most things.

 

[Windwalker]

Someone who is an authority figure? One who promises to simply take care of everything, keep us all safe, make all the decisions so no effort has to be made by the citizens? The Washington Post ran this article today and it made me stop and reflect. I've been baffled, truly baffled, trying to understand the mind- and heart-set of a person--Republican, Democrat or Independent--who can support the reelection of the current occupant of the White House.

I kept asking myself, "Why doesn't character matter to his supporters? Is it something he accomplished which allows them to turn their faces and cover their ears to his hate-filled rhetoric, his lies and bullying? Or maybe something he promised to accomplish and that hope yet lives?" No, maybe it's as simple and as complex as this article proposes. Is it that Trump supporters are basically racist like him? We might all have bias and find it hard to confess.

I'm not Trump bashing nor Trump-supporter bashing here and I don't want this thread to devolve to that. I really want to know. Please, supporters of Trump and Trumpism, if there are any of you on this forum, I really want to know. Now that you've had 4 years of him, got to know him, see him in action, please enlighten me, why doesn't it matter to you what kind of a man Trump is, i.e., his character? And why doesn't it matter to you that his actions and attitudes (and those of the silent GOP) have put this country back to the tension-filled air and upheavals of the 1960s? Why?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...oter-authoritarian-research/#comments-wrapper

Your topic title got my attention. There was an article written in 2016 addressing this very question by a professor who works in the cognitive and brain sciences. It very much addresses the why of your question, and it opens our understandings of why often such contradictory values can be held the ways they are. It boils down to the Strict Father family vs. Nurturant Parent family. Worldview are shaped and molded this way, where things like systemic causation is foreign as a way of thinking, for example. Good read, and I hope you get a lot from it. Article: Why Trump?

 

[Sw. Vandana Jyothi]

Check out Robert Altemeyer's free ebook on the scientific study of people who follow authoritarian leaders. It's short, to the point, and written with a keen sense of humor. It will tell you everything you need to know to understand the mindset of authoritarian followers. Altemeyer was a scientist who dedicated his whole career to the study of people willing to follow the likes of a Donald Trump, and his expertise shows.

The Authoritarians.

Holy sacred cow! Thank you for this link. The discourse on the Home Page itself is useful. I am feeling more sympathetic towards and hope some "authoritarian figure" followers read it and get a glimpse of the dynamic at play in their own choices. Not all Trump/Trumpism supporters are stupid, some are merely ignorant. Stupid people can't learn. Ignorant people can take knowledge and use it to dispel their ignorance, should they wish to do so. Willful ignorance like Trump's? Mmmmm, no hope there. He chooses his dumb over and over again. Please don't see that as Trump bashing. Again it's a fact, and distinguishing between the two is important.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

How is Trump authoritarian? I hate Authoritarians, so do all Trump supporters, so I'm curious where this silly notion is coming from.

He won't let the CDC mention a few things, he's made the EPA take down stuff about climate change, he has expressed desire to lock up political adversaries, restrictions placed upon immigrants, rescinding civil rights gains under Obama, he has expressed a desire for military parades (that strictly do not feature wounded and handicapped troops), he used police to clear out peaceful protestors for a photo op, protestors were abducted, and lately it has been his efforts into attacking and degrading the integrity of the US elections and attempts to interfere with the mail.

 

[PureX]

I think there are two kinds of Trump supporters. One kind I call the "capos". They're like those guys in the nazi death camps that aided the nazis to improve their own chances of survival. They are philosophical Darwinists who believe that everyone is always struggling and contending with everyone else to live. And only the strong and the clever make it. So they see their oppressors and abusers as their betters, because they're the stronger, and more clever. And they try to ride their coattails to gain their own advantage. These are the people who will vote for republicans no matter what they do, because the republicans represent the Darwinian "winners" in life. And they want to ride their coattails to gain whatever advantages they can get, for themselves. These people also identify with Trumps constant "winner vs. loser" view of existence. Because that's how they see it, themselves.

The other kind of Trump supporters are those people who are so angry, and so resentful, and so frustrated with the way things have gone in their lives and their cities and towns that they just want to burn the house down. They want there to be a catastrophic collapse, so that everyone else will have to experience what they feel they have been experiencing, and finally see the world as they have been seeing it. They have lost hope for any sort of turn-around and they want everyone else to be hopeless, with them.

I'm speaking, here, of the people who actually support Trump as their president, as opposed to that whole class of people who are out to use Trump to run interference for them while they work behind the scene to rape, rob, and pillage their own society for all it's worth. Those people don't support Trump so much as they're just using him, to abuse others.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Trump supporters feel no "safety" with Trump. We want freedom, and less government in our lives. We want someone unafraid to break the chains that weaken our independence. We want a president who places American citizens above foreigners.

NAFTA made us dependent on foreign countries... We want independence.

Then what about walls to keep out the drug dealing, rapist Mexicans? What about banning people from certain countries?

 

[Sw. Vandana Jyothi]

I think there are two kinds of Trump supporters. One kind I call the "capos". They're like those guys in the nazi death camps that aided the nazis to improve their own chances of survival. They are philosophical Darwinists who believe that everyone is always struggling and contending with everyone else to live. And only the strong and the clever make it. So they see their oppressors and abusers as their betters, because they're the stronger, and more clever. And they try to ride their coattails to gain their own advantage. These are the people who will vote for republicans no matter what they do, because the republicans represent the Darwinian "winners" in life. And they want to ride their coattails to gain whatever advantages they can get, for themselves. These people also identify with Trumps constant "winner vs. loser" view of existence. Because that's how they see it, themselves.

The other kind of Trump supporters are those people who are so angry, and so resentful, and so frustrated with the way things have gone in their lives and their cities and towns that they just want to burn the house down. They want there to be a catastrophic collapse, so that everyone else will have to experience what they feel they have been experiencing, and finally see the world as they have been seeing it. They have lost hope for any sort of turn-around and they want everyone else to be hopeless, with them.

I'm speaking, here, of the people who actually support Trump as their president, as opposed to that whole class of people who are out to use Trump to run interference for them while they work behind the scene to rape, rob, and pillage their own society for all it's worth. Those people don't support Trump so much as they're just using him, to abuse others.

Very thoughtful post, PureXji. Alas, I fear the "burn the house down" contingent are going to get their way. We haven't even discussed what's going to happen next with the economy. 1929-30 will be remembered with nostalgia.

 

[The Hammer]

How is Trump authoritarian? I hate Authoritarians, so do all Trump supporters, so I'm curious where this silly notion is coming from.

Trump Is an Authoritarian. So Are Millions of Americans

In 1950, taking McCarthyism head on while others demurred, Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith delivered a more pointed articulation of these principles in her “Declaration of Conscience.” She said:

“It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedoms. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”

 

[PureX]

Trump supporters feel no "safety" with Trump. We want freedom, and less government in our lives. We want someone unafraid to break the chains that weaken our independence. We want a president who places American citizens above foreigners.

NAFTA made us dependent on foreign countries... We want independence.

Trump isn't going to do any of those things. In fact, he'd be the first guy willing to literally put chains on you. And anyway, the problem is not "too much government". The problem is that our government has been totally corrupted by the legalized bribery of the wealthy elite, and it is they who are enslaving you, slowly and steadily, with the corrupt laws they get their corrupted politicians to pass.

Destroying government will not result in "freedom". It will result in anarchy, which inevitably leads to horrific abuse and oppression by bands of bully-boys with guns. The solution is to stop the legalized bribery of our government, and end the wholesale corruption, not anarchy.

 

[Secret Chief]

Check out Robert Altemeyer's free ebook on the scientific study of people who follow authoritarian leaders. It's short, to the point, and written with a keen sense of humor. It will tell you everything you need to know to understand the mindset of authoritarian followers. Altemeyer was a scientist who dedicated his whole career to the study of people willing to follow the likes of a Donald Trump, and his expertise shows.

The Authoritarians.

Altemeyer should get off the fence:

"He has made so many unforced errors because of his lack of understanding and low problem-solving intelligence, his vast ignorance, his enormous, never-ending dishonesty which seems as reflexive as his breathing, his explosive hostility, his uncontrollable vanity, his despicable demeaning of women, his squalid vulgarity, the stupidity of his stereotypes, the shabbiness of his thinking, the buffoonery of his parading, his attacks on the institutions he needs most to safeguard the country, his incredibly poor judgment about the character of those whom he has brought into his administration, his equally mind-numbing lack of judgment about foreign leaders, friend and foe, and his willingness to inflame Americans’ disagreements and turn them into conflagrations..."

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

No. I'm really getting sick of the constant insults and bullying towards conservatives and Republicans on this board. It's gotten extremely out of hand. You'd all be crying to high heaven if the nasty **** said about them was said about liberals and Democrats on here. Over 90% of this board is leftist or progressive. Is RF now trying to push away everyone who doesn't agree with those ideologies? Because it sure seems like it! We have staff contributing to this hostile atmosphere, as well!

 

[Stevicus]

I think there are two kinds of Trump supporters. One kind I call the "capos". They're like those guys in the nazi death camps that aided the nazis to improve their own chances of survival. They are philosophical Darwinists who believe that everyone is always struggling and contending with everyone else to live. And only the strong and the clever make it. So they see their oppressors and abusers as their betters, because they're the stronger, and more clever. And they try to ride their coattails to gain their own advantage. These are the people who will vote for republicans no matter what they do, because the republicans represent the Darwinian "winners" in life. And they want to ride their coattails to gain whatever advantages they can get, for themselves. These people also identify with Trumps constant "winner vs. loser" view of existence. Because that's how they see it, themselves.

The other kind of Trump supporters are those people who are so angry, and so resentful, and so frustrated with the way things have gone in their lives and their cities and towns that they just want to burn the house down. They want there to be a catastrophic collapse, so that everyone else will have to experience what they feel they have been experiencing, and finally see the world as they have been seeing it. They have lost hope for any sort of turn-around and they want everyone else to be hopeless, with them.

I'm speaking, here, of the people who actually support Trump as their president, as opposed to that whole class of people who are out to use Trump to run interference for them while they work behind the scene to rape, rob, and pillage their own society for all it's worth. Those people don't support Trump so much as they're just using him, to abuse others.

I think this is a good analysis, although I might add that there are also those who have grown so fed up with the Democrats that they'll vote for anyone but them. They're probably related to the second group, although I don't think they want to burn everything down. More than likely, they're trying to send a message to stop ignoring the working classes.

When Trump said he would bring jobs and manufacturing back to America, that chimed with a lot of people. They had been waiting 30 or more years to hear a politician say something like that - and any one of the candidates could have said that.

Back in the 1940s and 50s, America's industries were booming. People who lived in tenements and Hoovervilles in previous generations were now moving into suburban homes. The standard of living was growing by leaps and bounds, industries were expanding, unions were strong, and people were living better than they ever had. Civil rights issues were getting greater attention, and there was an overall feeling of optimism about the future (although it was unfortunately coupled with feelings of worry during the Cold War). It was far from ideal, though it was certainly far better, economically, in America than what people had experienced during the World Wars and the Depression.

But these were the "good old days" when America was at its peak and considered "great" by most standards. My sense is that the Trump supporters want to recapture the essence of that period and make America "great again," as the slogan goes.

A lot of people out there might feel a sense of loss over sentimental feelings about what they believe America was, as opposed to what it is now. I've heard a lot of people say "this country is going down the tubes" and often talk about America as if it's a nation in decline.

I'm reminded of this dialogue from Three Days of the Condor:


Higgins : It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. Maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?

Joe Turner : Ask them?

Higgins : Not now - then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!

 

[Sw. Vandana Jyothi]

No. I'm really getting sick of the constant insults and bullying towards conservatives and Republicans on this board. It's gotten extremely out of hand. You'd all be crying to high heaven if the nasty **** said about them was said about liberals and Democrats on here. Over 90% of this board is leftist or progressive. Is RF now trying to push away everyone who doesn't agree with those ideologies? Because it sure seems like it! We have staff contributing to this hostile atmosphere, as well!

WHAT??!! Offended by "constant insults and bullying...." That's rich.

But how come not a single person favoring Trump has answered ANY of my questions? Why doesn't his character matter to you? Why doesn't his divisive, racist speech matter to you? Or to put it another way, what do you find attractive about this candidate??

 

[Tambourine]

No. I'm really getting sick of the constant insults and bullying towards conservatives and Republicans on this board. It's gotten extremely out of hand. You'd all be crying to high heaven if the nasty **** said about them was said about liberals and Democrats on here. Over 90% of this board is leftist or progressive. Is RF now trying to push away everyone who doesn't agree with those ideologies? Because it sure seems like it! We have staff contributing to this hostile atmosphere, as well!

Didn't you use to be progressive at some point?


I take it you didn't feel particularly bothered by homophobic and transphobic language on these boards.
Or is that an acceptable sacrifice to allow conservatives to speak freely, unbothered by critical voices?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

WHAT??!! "Constant insults and bullying...." That's rich.

But how come not a single person favoring Trump has answered ANY of my questions? Why doesn't his character matter to you? Why doesn't his divisive, racist speech matter to you? Or to put it another way, what do you find attractive about this candidate??

What's rich? Go have a look at DS' thread to see what I mean.

I expect politicians to be scumbags. Trump never presented himself as a choirboy. Biden is a scumbag, too. You don't get far in politics by being a good person, especially in the corrupt American government.