# Resolved: You cannot understand Trump's support without understanding RWA and SDO **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [May 5, 2025, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-you-cannot-understand-trumps-support-without-understanding-rwa-and-sdo/1017933 "2025-05-05T23:27:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 62
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-you-cannot-understand-trumps-support-without-understanding-rwa-and-sdo/1017933/62 "2025-06-03T13:11:32Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Valid point. However right wing authoritarianism is called right wing because it means someone supports the existing system. In the USSR, people who supported the communists were the right wing authoritarians and the people pushing for reforms like more market economic policies and more personal freedom were seen as the enemies by the RWA types in the USSR. So in the USSR, the RWA were the ones that supported communism because that was the established system. Are you sure about that? I looked up the questions and there are quite a few about religion and traditional values that a communist, even a very authoritarian one, would likely answer ‘disagree’ to. Which is kind of my issue with it: if you ask specifically about _right-wing_ authoritarianism, then it’s completely unsurprising people who score highly on it would vote for the right-wing party. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > As far as your statement of labeling your political opposition as bad people, there are objective metrics. There can’t be, really, since morality is inherently not objective. You can determine how well a person lives up to their own moral beliefs, or to someone else’s, but there’s no objective way to determine which set of beliefs is correct. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > People who score higher in RWA and SDO are more bigoted. There are endless forms of bigotry (sexism, racism, nativism). Granted, this is expected since conservatives score higher on Haidt’s markers like purity, authority and in-group. These are all threatened by out-groups. Because liberals do not care about purity, authority or in-groups as much as conservatives, and because liberals value fairness and harm more than conservatives, liberals only see the harm done by oppression of out-groups, while conservatives more see the threats out-groups pose to purity and in-group loyalty. You realise there’s a whole world of crimes and ways to hurt other people that have nothing to do with bigotry, right? Arguably the worst thing Trump has done was try to overturn the 2020 election result, and that was merely self-interest. I don’t think the issue is that liberals value moral foundations more or less than conservatives so much as that each group applies them differently. Eg, liberals consider it unfair for some people to have plenty of money and others very little, while conservatives consider it unfair to take money from someone who earned it and give it to someone who didn’t. Liberals worry about the harm to criminals from giving them long sentences, conservatives worry about the harm to future crime victims if criminals are not locked up. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Brain scans show liberals feel more compassion than conservatives. Your statement that conservatives have better mental health is likely true, just like the statement that liberals feel more compassion seems to be true. Possible. Having argued with both on TwitteX, I’ve found them equally assholish towards anyone who disagrees with them, but it’s more jarring from left-wingers since they generally appear more caring. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Do you have a good argument for why a system that gives fewer rights, acceptance or integration for out-groups has benefits that need to be followed on a society wide level? From what I can see, the main benefit is the psychological benefits people high in RWA and SDO feel from keeping the social hierarchy intact. I don’t think that’s an answerable question. Nobody sets out with the goal of giving fewer rights or less acceptance and integration to outgroups; you need to look at specific examples and see what the motivation is. For example, if you were hiring someone for a job, you might refuse to employ a Trump supporter, because you think supporting Trump indicates bad judgement. Here’s a thread where some people say they would engage in this form of discrimination, and give various reasons for it: > [@Ethical to screen out Trump supporters applying for a job?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-to-screen-out-trump-supporters-applying-for-a-job/928467): > > [This thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-im-looking-for-a-therapist-is-it-ok-to-ask-if-they-are-a-trump-supporter/928400) got me thinking … IANAHRP, but if I were a hiring manager, I would review social media accounts for anyone I was considering and eliminate those whose feeds indicated strong support for Trump. IMHO, anyone who supports him enthusiastically enough to fly that flag on social media is … Seriously stupid and/or delusional Racist An authoritarian-craving asshole All of the above Since any of those qualities would suggest someone I would not want on my team, would it be ethical to disq… Similarly, many left-wingers want to ban certain kinds of speech. The effect is to take away the right to free expression disproportionately from right-wingers, but their goals are to stop misinformation and/or prevent harm (including psychological harm) to oppressed minorities. For a right-wing example, consider the homeless people I mentioned earlier. Conservatives want to break up homeless encampments not because they enjoy oppressing the homeless, but because homeless camps create a nuisance that reduces quality of life for other citizens and even for the homeless themselves. Here’s an actual conservative argument for this: > **[Grants Pass Isn't About Housing. It's About Camping.](https://thecausalfallacy.com/p/grants-pass-isnt-about-housing-its)** > > What people aren't getting about the camping ban case In general if you want to understand conservatives’ motives for supporting policies you consider harmful or exclusionary, looking at specific examples and picking out the common themes is probably the way to go. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Thats like saying a corporation feeling motivated by a strong sense of desire to improve profits mean that their desire for quarterly profits makes it an objective good, irrelevant to the damage caused to the environment, labor force, etc by this philosophy. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. We support corporations being profit driven because that’s the best system we know of for generating wealth and meeting demand. Its much easier to channel people’s self-interest in pro-social directions than to try and force them not to act on it, and a bunch of smaller separate actors are far more able to adapt and respond to circumstances than some distant and necessarily bureaucratic central planning department. That doesn’t mean we should just ignore negative externalities like environmental damage. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-you-cannot-understand-trumps-support-without-understanding-rwa-and-sdo/1017933)._