What we have learned (so far) from Trump supporters

Over the next few months we intend to conduct several “bridging” conversations crossing the political divide. But we have already started exploring deeper understanding of Trump’s supporters through interview, discussions, and readings. Some in our group have family members who voted for Trump; others have gone out to the Washington Mall to talk to people at the right-to-life march; some have gone door-to-door in Appalachia; and we have conducted a set of interviews online. And we have found books that dig deep, most notably Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land, which tries to cross the “empathy gap” between a liberal Berkeley sociologist and deep Louisiana Tea Party loyalists.

There are, of course, many varieties of Trump supporters. There are some hedge fund managers who want less regulation of their industry, and some highly educated people who have built an elaborate ideology around protecting Western civilization. But the vast bulk of Trumpists, as can be seen on any electoral map, are people in rural areas and small towns, with relatively little exposure to the cosmopolitan buzz of the postmodern world – at least until recently. Our efforts at understanding are focused on these people, whom we rarely interact with and whose lives are foreign to those of us who live in the big cities. To understand them, we find, we need to get behind the surface rhetoric to understand deeper motivations and experiences.

Hochschild provides a beautiful example of what comes from such digging:

At a meeting of the Republican women of southwest Louisiana, Madonna Massey, a a gospel singer, declared that she "loved Rush Limbaugh.."... I asked Madonna what she loved about Limbaugh. "His criticism of 'femi-nazis,' you know, feminists, women who want to be equal to men." I absorbed that for a moment. ... Then from there we went through Limbaugh's epithets ("commie libs, " "environmental wackos"). Finally we came to Madonna's basic feeling that Limbaugh was defending her against insults she felt liberals were lobbing at her: "Oh, liberals think that the Bible-believing Southerners are ignorant, backward, rednecks, losers. They think we're racist, sexist, homophobic, and maybe fat." ... In this moment, I began to recognize the power of blue-state catcalls taunting red state residents. Limbaugh was a firewall against liberal insults thrown at her and her ancestors, she felt. (p. 22)

This is one key theme that comes out in almost every interview and discussion we have had: Trump supporters deeply resent being called racist, believe that they are not racist, and feel that the establishment has used the term to demean and silence them.

Second, and related, they feel their way of life is under attack, and that they have been losing for a long time. They have little sympathy for the bright lights of the coastal cities. They value stable family relations, churches, neighborhoods. For the last few decades they have felt that these institutions are dying. A year ago a conservative lamented in the Washington Post: “The left won the culture war. Will they be merciful?” He noted:

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, remarked to the reporter: “We are on the losing side of a massive change that’s not going to be reversed, in all likelihood, in our lifetimes.” In Mohler’s view ... “Christians must adapt to the changed cultural circumstances by finding a way ‘to live faithfully in a world in which we’re going to be a moral exception.’ ”

A third issue that has emerged rather strongly is that these Trump supporters are surprisingly open to dialogue. They, too, are distressed by the current degree of polarization and extremist rhetoric. Hochschild established deep connections to many ardent Tea Party supporters who cared for her and felt she cared for them. In our experience, we found that people often came out on their porches in the cold and expressed amazement and delight that someone from Washington would be interested in what they had to say. In our web interviews we got comments like:

“I’m hoping our country will move toward having a conversation. We can improve on the Founding Fathers, because they were human and made mistakes. But we have a unique opportunity as a country founded on an idea.”

and

“There needs to be more discussion, less rhetoric. We have to speak, and there needs to be less black & white. There is more agreement than people think.”

But, they feel, the progressives often shut the door:

“People think I am racist/homophobic/misogynist or whatever. It's easy to call names. I've seen it in school too; when you disagree with the school board, suddenly you hate kids? I love kids! It is hard to talk when people only call names.”

We progressives often condemn “microaggressions” against women and minorities; but we commit microaggressions every day against people who like guns and and steak and big cars and evangelical Christianity. The feeling of being looked down on generates powerful feelings of anger and hostility that may take many forms, such as Madonna’s criticism of ‘femi-nazis’; but the particular issues are far less important that the deep sense of insult and loss.

There are opportunities here to open the door.