Building a fervent base: How Trump could gain zealots

The BBQ Pit
1

We all know about Trump’s base. They are dedicated. They are passionate. And, in spite of Internet Research Agency attempts to imply otherwise,* their numbers have held fairly steady since Trump was inaugurated. No noticeable bumps up have occurred.

But could that change as the Trump fans get more and more mired in Trump’s swamp of indecency? Could what seems to be a campaign by Trump to be ever-more disgusting, actually pay off for him?

Yesterday, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov was responding to reports about Trump’s most recent rallies (June 28 in Fargo and July 6 in Montana), at which he mocked John McCain, ridiculed the “points of light” volunteerism campaign of the former president whose wife recently died, discussed forcibly conducting DNA testing on a US Senator, referred to the MeToo movement derisively, and claimed that the IQ of a US Representative who’d challenged him was in the “mid-sixties.”**

Kasparov tweeted:

As the crowds cheer Trump’s indecency, they take on that indecency—and this ties them more closely to him. If he loses, then they will be exposed to the eyes of the world as disgusting and disgraceful pariahs. But if he wins, they will be carried along with him–winners, too.

The coarseness and offensiveness Trump shares with his fans makes them not just his supporters–it makes them fervent zealots. They will do anything to keep him in power–because if he loses power, they themselves will be revealed as contemptible.
I don’t believe Kasparov was suggesting that Trump has figured out all of this–but instead, that it’s the natural instinct of the bully to gain followers by making them feel that no one else will have anything to do with them, deplorable as they are. So the bully wins, not just by behaving more and more deplorably—but by making sure that his followers participate in the indecent and vile conduct. Laugh at the disabled, mock the dying, ridicule the elderly widower…it ties them more closely to him. This is a function his rallies serve (in addition to feeding his ego, of course).

If this is a valid observation, then we can predict that Trump will be looking for new lows to hit—for things to say and do that are ever-more abhorrent and ugly.

I would suggest that merely shrugging at this—saying ‘it’s Trump, what can you do?’—is something we’ve been doing all along, and we know that it has little effect. But making a concerted effort to point out the tactic might have some potential for derailing it.

We’ve all simply assumed that Trump says horrible things because he’s a horrible person, and his fans are horrible people too, and there’s nothing more to say about it. But maybe that’s not all there is, here–maybe Kasparov is right, and there’s a psychological dynamic that’s worth shining a spotlight on.

*most recently with the rather lame ‘walkaway’ attempt at meme-creation

**The rallies: one account is at https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/06/politics/donald-trump-montana-speech/index.html

2

I don’t disagree with any of your analysis, but what makes you think the part I’ve underlined would make any difference? How would that work?

3

Well, I don’t pretend to have a definitive answer, but my guess is that what we’ve been doing all along–being polite about the topic in public while saying ‘can you believe these people?’ in private, is a reaction that was reasonable in the recent past, but isn’t anymore.

And that’s because none of us can remember a President that openly mocked the disabled and the dying and used that as a way to bond with his fans.

This is brand new in our lifetimes. I suspect it might have been well-known to German speakers in the 1930s, but it’s new in mainstream politics in the USA in living memories.

So what I’m saying is part of the general idea that pointing out that this isn’t normal is better than pretending it IS normal. And part of the reason for making a thread about it is that many minds are better than one: others will have found examples of ways of pointing out that the Trump fans aren’t just being tribal–they are participating in being part of a bully’s gang.

At rallies for Romney or McCain or W or Bob Dole or George HW, there was tribalism, but there wasn’t someone urging the crowd to ridicule and mock those with less power. There just wasn’t. This is new.

4

I’m certainly in favor of pointing out at every opportunity that “this isn’t normal.” Lots of people havent been polite about it, from “Fuck Trump” by some actor to asking Sarah Sanders to leave their restaurant. Doesn’t seem to put a damper on the deplorable behavior.

I don’t get the support for Trump, I honestly don’t. (I’d prefer not to think that this many people hate our country and simply want to see an incompetent and corrupt asshole in charge) So I’m probably not the one to find a solution that works.

5

I’d like to see news-show segments on what occurred at rallies for Romney, McCain, and other GOP candidates, as compared with what has occurred at Trump rallies. (I’d say compare GOP presidents’ rallies with Trump rallies, but other presidents haven’t really held rallies until the year before their re-election bids. Still, guess those could be discussed.)

The way Trump fans behave differs radically----from beating up protesters (or cheering when Trump suggests they do) to laughing at things people at other GOP rallies wouldn’t laugh at. I’d like to see the news media highlighting this. And as for the rest of us: it might be worth discussing the psychology of ‘commitment via embroilment in the unsavory.’
I’d suggest that what goes on when Trump fans laugh along with Trump at how ridiculous George H.W. Bush’s ideas were, or at how “low-IQ” Maxine Waters is, is different only in degree, not in kind, to what happens when an aspiring organized-crime gang member is invited to “make his bones.”

What happens there is that the aspiring gang member commits a capital crime–and is thereby tied for life to the gang. He (or she) has done something that society cannot forgive—and therefore he must adhere to and support the gang, because he now has no other options.

People seen on camera laughing at Trump’s imitating a disabled reporter, are now committed to Trump for life. No one else will have anything to do with them.

Until I saw Kasparov’s tweet about this, I hadn’t really seen anyone else discussing it. (Doesn’t mean discussion hasn’t happened–just that it’s not a widely-discussed idea.) I think it’s worth making better-known.