And Who Would Be The Donald’s Real “Losers” and “Suckers”?

Even before we got to the “losers” and “suckers” phase of The Donald Trump Experience we already knew this election was set in cement. Nothing is going to stop 39% of the American voting age population from idolizing a narcissistic reality TV performer. That 39% can almost be described as “genetic”, certainly figuratively and quite possibly literally.

A few days before Donald of Bone Spur called Americans who volunteered to defeat facism — instead of making a few million bucks by taking over daddy’s real estate scams, tax frauds and all, and devoting his spare time to avoiding STDs on the Manhattan dating scene — a poll showed the same 39% crediting Trump with doing “a good job” on the COVID-19 pandemic.

If I had a dollar for every time I asked, “Who the [bleep] are these people?” well … I’d owe myself a couple million. Through the lenses of sociology, cultural anthropology and basic psychology the absolutely unmoveable, intractable, granitic allegiance of this percentage of people to Trump — not the Republican party, but Donald Trump — is nothing short of astonishing. A “good job” on the pandemic? Has this crowd been on Neptune since January?

I’ve been fascinated with this undistractable, almost reptilian response to Trump since he rode down the gilded escalator. This isn’t “normal” political appeal. This is way beyond Ronald Reagan. Trump clearly excites something in the 39% that no other personality in American leadership ever has. I said as much when I wrote about how he could “win it all” back in 2016.

Arguably, and well worth discussing, is the likelihood that there’s something even deeper than psychology at work in the tribal, animal-like response to Donald Trump among 39% of our population. Or at least I think it’s worth talking about. So bear with me here.

A little knowledge of evolutionary physiology can be a dangerous thing. But there is common agreement that at any given point in time individuals of any species, from locusts to salamanders to humans possess physical abilities different from other members of the same species. It’s Darwinian. It’s how species at large guarantee their survival. A certain percentage of every herd, or tribe, possess capabilities, genetic structure, talents and instincts that allow them to survive stress, whether by drought, famine or conflict with predators.

I’ve mentioned I’m a fan of Ezra Klein, of his website Vox, his podcast and his individual writing. And I’ve been struck by how many times in conversations with guests from one scientific discipline or another he’s walked up to the line where the logical next phase of the discussion about “Why We’re Polarized”, or tribalism or what gives with the 39% is to talk about a biological/physiological explanation.

To be specific, about the likelihood that the 39% is an evolutionary standard, possibly millions of years old. There have been studies of the psychological manifestations of an overactive, which is say, “differently wired” amygdala, the brain’s physical center for controlling emotions. A bit more active than “normal” and the fight-or flight mechanism is more hair-trigger and less reflective.

I’ve also read sensible explanations for the (very) long-term benefit to genetic survival in having a portion of every tribe wired in such a way. Having a large portion, i.e. 39%, hyper-perceptive to potential dangers — the snap of a twig in the dark forest, drums beating on the other side of the savannah — meant the tribe as a whole had a better chance of preparing for and defeating whatever might come.

This kind of talk is of course a cultural minefield, especially in the aftermath of “The Bell Curve” by Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in 1994. All hell broke loose over their suggestion that genetics explained intellectual weaknesses among races.

But what I’m talking about has nothing to do with racial or even ethnic distinctions. The possibility worth discussing is whether this is what it would more likely be, which is to say a standard percentage across every “tribe”. A very, very basic means of insuring genetic survival.

Eventually the conversation has to then turn to the value of so high a percentage in a modern, highly-interconnected and (despite what the headlines tell you) a far, far less violent world than what we evolved from at say The Dawn of Man.

Barely 200,000 years have passed since humans began some form of tribal living, a collectivizing frought with fear of the tribe on the otherside of the valley and every other … other. That’s far too little time to significantly reduce — i.e. Darwinize-out — the “inflamed amygdalas” among the human species.

So this high percentage of hair-trigger “fight or flight” tribe members today instead responds not to the snap of twigs, or smoke signals on the horizon, but rather to high intensity, high frequency signals from within the culture at large. Moreover, being at the dawn of the age of highly-individualized social media as we are, where everyone can plug into whatever excites their amygdala the most, these people can feel fortified by the presence of a vast tribe of common thinkers, or “like-minded fearer/fighters” if you will.

Donald Trump’s lamentable talent, one that I doubt he’s ever bothered to explain to himself since it works so well, but is copied from every authoritarian in history and all the autocrats of today, is to feed this percentage of the tribal population precisely what excites their brain structure most effectively. “Precisely” in terms of not just message, but of tone and context. (A “really, really rich” silverback known to associate with only attractive females.)

And yes, Trump’s triggering shtick is abetted, if not lifted whole from popular media like Fox News, Breitbart, talk radio and so on. All of which, as ratings and surveys regularly confirm, are consumed by the same percentage and composition of the population.

As scientists have said, ruefully in many cases, it’s an open question whether in evolutionary terms this 39% represents the portion of the species that survives what comes next and therefore passes on its DNA, or whether it fades away, an unadaptive anachronism, like wooly mammoths, dodo birds and our prehensile tails.

The immediate problem of course is what damage this highly instinctive, highly reactive, all but completely unreflective allegiance to the biggest ape’s constant false alarms does to the tribe in general.

13 thoughts on “And Who Would Be The Donald’s Real “Losers” and “Suckers”?

  1. I’d say the reason that 39% will do anything Trump says has more to do with Authoritarianism than genetics. Authoritarian Followers are created by parenting and social structures. Robert Altemeyer and others have amply documented the threats of Authoritarian Followers and Authoritarian Leaders (See theauthoritarians.org – free download of Altemeyer’s book)

    • Well, even the “nature vs. nuture” debate could go interesting places. Is the “brain wiring”, authoritarian or liberal, entirely a matter of nurture, or does it come genetically? I think it’s an interesting question, but one that many are reluctant to touch.

  2. Brian, I’ve been developing an answer to your question about this too… How can 39% still believe in Trump/Republicans? Though I’m not sure I agree with you that it’s Trump per se that make people incapable of leaving the party… My opinion is that it’s SHAME. I think many people (half the people?) are incapable of facing their shame. Shame is the cliche reason for “hari-kari” – and I think it motivates people far more than either fear or love. It’s shameful to have voted for Trump, and in fact — it’s shameful to vote republican when we all know their identity revolves around Lying. Lying about climate change, lying about race, lying about women and guns, etc, etc — this has become the center of their identity. They are now caught red-handed in so much hypocrisy, it’s shameful to admit it. Imagine their outrage if a non-republican had been caught in bed with The Russians… Fact is, they are too ASHAMED to admit that their guy, their Obvious Liar, is wrong and always has been. We all knew who he was before. In fact — the obviousness of Trumps horribleness is evidence that it isn’t Trump, it’s Lying that they are committed to. And being proven a Liar is worse perhaps than being proven a murderer or rapist. Lying is a character deficiency. The Republican Party has it. To cop a phrase they used to use about gays, “You aren’t born a republican, you choose it.” They have chosen Moral Wrongness for so long — they are too ashamed to admit it.

    • As a (former) Catholic I’m all about shame. Mostly of course for years of impure thoughts as a teenager/college guy. It’s powerful. I won’t diagree with that.

    • Tom Friedman’s 9/9/20 New York Times article expands on that premise relating it to humiliation avoidance.

      • Dennis. Thx for this. I missed it when it ran. It certainly feels true, and even when focused on Trump himself who was afforded no respect from “serious”, “legitimate” news organizations in New York as well as the city’s “better” society. Then you can roll in Obama’s Gary Busey joke at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. He is a transactional animal who comprehends brute humiliation.

    • Yeah. I guess the question is, “What is the root of values?” Mom and Dad teaching you things, sure. But that came from where? Considering all the value choices we are presented with in a lifetime, why do some “stick” and others do not?

  3. Typically smart and outside the box, Brian. Seems to me, though, that the fact that Trumps 39% isn’t spread evenly throughout the population, as it should be if the problem is the hard wiring we have evolved these last few million years, instead that 39% is composed of maybe 80% of really old folks and just 10% of really young ones. suggests the problem is more the technology driven, exponentially increasing pace of change than the genes we carry. Youth are obviously much more flexible and less change averse than we ossified oldsters. Where most of us are scared shitless by unimaginably rapid change, everything from unisex bathrooms and gay marriage to driverless cars, the death of our beloved newspapers and cloned everything, to most of them these changes are part of the landscape, more to be embraced than feared. The scary question for humankind is whether as a species we can adapt to the escalating pace of change, or figure out how to moderate it, without burning books and mass murdering one another. Trumpism says we cannot. Youth says we can. Only time will tell.

    • Well, not being a Great Scientific Mind I’m not going to get too far out on a limb with my speculations, other than to say I find the idea interesting and worth discussing. The emotional appeal of values to individuals comes from … where? Your point about age strikes me as valid and also worth rolling over a few times. Someone mentioned the big urban-rural divide, and while I have nothing hard and empirical on that I am constantly reminded of ex-CIA chief Michael Hayden’s observation that one of the most consistent, reliable indicators of a Trump voter was the distance they lived from where they were raised. Within 25 miles? 90% Trump. His point being that something compelled such people to remain in place rather than venture out.

  4. I think that this fits in fairly well with your theory:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/predicate-fear/616009/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-weekly-newsletter&utm_content=20200906&silverid-ref=MzEwMTkwMTM5Mjg5S0

    Basically, it says that existential fear is what drives Trump’s supporters–they really believe that Biden wants to sacrifice small children in order to bring about the end of the world (as they know it). It is fear that leads them to overlook all the failings and shortcomings of Mr. Drumpf. The world is changing, and they are afraid that there is no place for them in it.

    • Thx, Pete. I read that. That kind of fear, fear that blocks out rational explanations and empirical data just seems to me to be something catalyzed by emotions stronger that what mom or dad taught them over the dinner table.

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