Don’t Disrespect Trump Supporters

Michael F. Mascolo, Ph.D.

Jul 29

If you want someone to vote for you, you must find a way to meet their needs.

This is basic – yet politicians fail to do this all the time.

What gets in the way of trying to meet people’s needs?  Well, the very nature of our political system.  Instead of seeking to meet needs, we engage in us versus them politics.

For example, let’s look at the current political situation.  Drawing on her background as a prosecutor, the presumptive Democratic candidate for President Kamala Harris has said:

Before I was elected as vice president, before I was elected a United States senator, I was the elected attorney general of California. And before that I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles I took on perpetrators of all kinds…Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.

You may or may not agree with Harris.  This is not the point.

The point is that Harris is engaging in politics as usual. Instead of seeking to meet the needs of people who may be motivated to vote for Trump, Harris is attacking Trump.  Instead of giving people who might vote for Trump a positive reason to vote for her, she is simply attacking their candidate. She is making Trump the issue:  Trump is a bad man. I am the one to take him on. Vote for me because I will make you feel good by showing what a bad man Trump is.  You will be on the right side, because he and his supporters are on the wrong side.

There are several problems with this. Strategically, for the Democrats, it is not likely to work. Trump’s core base is loyal. Trump supporters will be insulted by these remarks.  Harris’ words are more likely to galvanize his support.

Trump voters support him because they feel that he meets their needs.  What are the needs of Trump supporters?  If you want someone to vote for you, you must find a way to meet their needs. 

Although the reasons why people support Trump differ, in general, Trump supporters are more likely to:

• Distrust government and other societal institutions[i]
• Feel socially and economically disenfranchised[ii]
• Feel – correctly or incorrectly – that minority groups are being given social and economic advantages[iii]
• Feel looked down upon by those who refer to them as sexist, racist, homophobic, and so forth[iv].
• Feel as though their way of life is threatened by immigration[v].
• Feel that – even though the stock market is doing well – that basic staples of everyday life are increasingly out of reach[vi]
• Feel that they are being forced by many business, government and academic institutions to accept ideologies about race, sex, class that they do not accept[vii]

It doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree with Trump supporters.  What matters is that many Trump supporters feel this way.  Many see Trump as a “strongman” who can “fix what is wrong” with the United States[viii].  They see him as someone who can meet their needs and give them what they want[ix].

Democrats see Trump as a threat to democracy.  It is instructive to note that Trump supporters see Democrats as a threat to Democracy.  If the Democrats want to stop Trump from being elected, they are going to have to do better than run against Trump.  And they certainly are going to have to do better than to run against Trump supporters.  Instead, they are going to have to find ways to address the needs of people who feel disenfranchised, diminished and threatened by the social, political and economic status quo.

Many on the left tend to treat Trump supporters as irrational and delusional[x]. They tend to think that Trump supporters are not voting in their self-interest – that they don’t know what’s good for them. This is part of the problem; this is part of the cause of our political polarization.

Instead of trying to convince Trump supporters that they are wrong about what they are experiencing, it is probably better to respect their experience – even if one disagrees with it — and seek ways to meet their expressed needs.

References

[i] Holder, (2020, February 24). Analysis: Trump Supporters Have Little Trust in Societal Institutions. UC Davis College of Letters and Science, https://lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu/news/trump-supporters-have-little-trust-societal-institutions

[ii] Hochschild, A. (2016). Strangers in their own land. The New Press.

[iii] Lempinen, E. (2024, May 24). Racial resentment fueled Jan. 6 rebellion and opposition to House probe, scholars find. Berkely News. https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/05/29/racial-resentment-fueled-jan-6-rebellion-and-opposition-to-house-probe-scholars-find/

[iv] Hohmann, J., Deppisch, B., & Breve, J. (2018, May 14). The Daily 202: Trump voters stay loyal because they feel disrespected. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/05/14/daily-202-trump-voters-stay-loyal-because-they-feel-disrespected/5af8aac530fb0425887994cc/

[v] Smeltz, D., & Kafua, C. (2024, January). How Trump and Non-Trump Republicans Differ on Immigration.Lester Crown Center on US Foreign Policy. https://globalaffairs.org/sites/default/files/2024-01/GOP%20Immigration%202023%20CCS.pdf

[vi]Binder, C. (2023, January 9). Political party affiliation and inflation expectations. Brookings.  https://www.brookings.edu/articles/political-party-affiliation-and-inflation-expectations/; Lahart, J. (2024, May 25). Trump voters don’t just expect higher inflation – They get it too. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/inflation-differs-republican-democrat-states-data-14800c1e

[vii] Ekhart, K. (2021). New Nationwide Survey Shows MAGA supporter’s beliefs about the pandemic, election and the insurrection.  UW News. https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/02/05/new-nationwide-survey-shows-maga-supporters-beliefs-about-the-pandemic-the-election-and-the-insurrection/

Elliott, P. (2023, November 7). The Democrats Begging their Party to Ditch the Activist Left. Time., https://time.com/6332506/democrats-2024-activist-left-elections/

[viii] Tufekci, Z. (2024, January 14).  A Strongman President?  These Voters Crave It. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/14/opinion/trump-voters-iowa-caucus.html

[ix] Enten, H. (2023). Trump supporters say they back him because of the issues. What does that mean?  CNN Politics. https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/politics/donald-trump-supporters-issues-poll/index.html

[x] Bennett, S. (2024, February 15). It’s Simplistic to Assume Trump’s Devoted Voters are Irrational. Fair Observer. https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/us-news/its-simplistic-to-assume-trumps-devoted-voters-are-irrational/#; Lempinen, E. (2020, September 7), Despite drift toward authoritarianism, Trump voters stay loyal. Why? Berkeley Research News. https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/despite-drift-toward-authoritarianism-trump-voters-stay-loyal-why;