Today’s blog is the first of three parts that looks at the Trump-MAGA coalition from a psychological perspective to help us understand the intense emotional vitriol that exists between its supporters and the progressive left. PART ONE describes three predominant factions of the coalition and their propensity for active versus passive participation. PART TWO focuses on the emotional structure of the coalition’s principal goals and what motivates and energizes each subgroup, along with how they differ from what drives the progressive left. In PART THREE we examine possible outcomes of the current rift and hopefully offer constructive advice on how to avoid a a disastrous outcome.
Part One: The Trump-MAGA Coalition Constituency
Trump supporters can be grouped into three general categories. While most persons are closely bonded to one category, they may share attributes with the others. These categories are: 1) Fundamentalist Christians, 2) Traditional Republican voters, and 3) Anti-woke/anti-progressives. Within each grouping there is a spectrum of political action ranging from passivity to activism.
The Christian faction is an anti-progressive culturally conservative group that believes that the U.S. is a Christian nation, that a divine order should be imposed, and that the cultural left is a satanic force corrupting our society. The passive members smile and mutter, “God bless you,” and live cloistered in their religious communities, home school children, and avoid contact with the secular community. Moderate activists can be seen protesting at Planned Parenthood centers, banning books in libraries, or hanging Ten Commandment lists in public schools. Extreme activists murder abortion service providers and open fire at gay bars. The hallmark of the Christian group is a uni-focal belief in one cultural system religiously prescribed.
The life-long-Republicans constituents of the Trump-MAGA coalition are driven by a fixed desire to protect and expand their wealth and position in society. They support capitalism and business with an aversion to regulation. They support minimal taxation and minimal government spending especially for human services. At the the passive pole they minimize political and cultural confrontation other than to vote and avoid interaction with the poor, non-cis-gender persons, and non-Republicans. The active pole includes the ultra-rich supporting candidates who will legislate their preferences and fete Supreme Court justices to rule on pending court decisions affecting their businesses. In Congress the active contingent uses the power of Filibuster or committee assignments to prevent liberal laws and block democratic judicial nominees. Nefarious activists disseminate disinformation. The dyed-in-the-wool-Republican’s primary goal is to sustain the economic and tax structure within which they have prospered.
The third and perhaps largest faction of the the Trump-MAGA coalition is its anti-woke/anti-progressive following. This group experiences violation from liberal policies which they feel diminishes them (the “cancel culture”). The wealthier of this group resent being labelled racists and being shamed that their acquired wealth is the product of exploiting poor workers. The less wealthy of this faction resent the implication that they are unsophisticated and culturally inferior. These people tend to be less diverse, more rural and less educated than the multi-cultural urban/suburban majority of progressives. Hence they recoil at academia and seethe at a perceived smugness by the left. The passive part of the spectrum isolate themselves in “country culture” and ignore the progressives. Toward the activist pole we observe attendees at school board meetings demanding books be banned, prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory and climate change, and disallowing hiring of non-cis-gender teachers. The most active of this group stormed the Capitol with guns to stop a “stolen election,” others formed a posse to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
Next in PART TWO we’ll explore the sources of psychological energy that drive the activism of the Trump-MAGA coalition and stoke its vitriol toward progressives.
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