Trying to pick your least favorite type of Trump supporter is not easy. The competition is stiff, and there are strong arguments for all of them.

Trumpist Typology

Greed Trumpists. There’s the Greed Trumpists, who will put up with any Trump outrage – kids torn from mothers and put in cages, white supremacy encouragement, coordinating with foreign enemies interfering in our democracy — to get a tax cut, even a tax cut that represents relative crumbs compared to the mountains of loaves lavished on billionaires.

Personality Cult Trumpists. There are the Personality Cult Trumpists, many of whom watched far too many episodes of The Apprentice with an uncritical eye.  They find Trump entertaining and embrace the myth of Trump’s deal-making skills and “only I can fix it” hucksterism, despite his pandemic response debacle and tax returns that expose Trump as a bumbler of epic proportions.

Bible-Thumpin’ Trumpists. Then there’s the Bible-Thumpin’ Trumpists. They ignore of the dozens of Trump’s extreme anti-Christian actions—serial sexual abuse and infidelity and cutting food subsidies for the poor to name just a couple — that make a mockery of the Golden Rule and the Beatitudes  in order to hoard as many Fallwell-endorsed judges as possible.

Tribal Trumpists. Who can forget the Tribal Trumpists, who will let Trump take their loved one’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) health protections and Social Security benefits just to be able to say that their Red Tribe of “real Americans” stuck it to the Blue Tribe of “libtard snowflakes.” Go team!

Changeophobe Trumpists. Changeophobe Trumpists are fearful of our fast-changing world and ever-nostalgic about the glories of what they view as the good old days of their childhoods. They are particularly susceptible to Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again” by keeping coal dirty, light bulbs inefficient, America white, global competition at bay, and bigotry unchallenged.

Racist Trumpists. The Racist Trumpists are obviously a very strong contender for least favorite.  They insist that Trump’s villifying of immigrants and people of color is a “refreshing rejection of political correctness,” instead of a wink and a nod to the full spectrum of racists, from those of us who are sometimes lousy at recognizing systemic racism to full-blown white supremacist activists like the Proud Boys, Aryan Nations, Volksfront, American Freedom Party, Ku Klux Klan, and White Aryan Resistance.

Thug Trumpists. And then there are Thug Trumpists, who can’t recognize the difference between bullying and actual strength, and gravitate towards authoritarian personalities to serve as a binky to make them feel more secure in the face of their overblown fears of our changing and more diverse nation.

False Equivalence Trumpists

But the last month of the election is when we unfortunately have to be hearing a lot from perhaps my least favorite type of Trump supporters — the False Equivalence Trumpists.  They continually declare that “both sides do it” to make their vote for the most bigoted, incompetent, and corrupt President in U.S. history seem somehow defensible.

Since last night’s presidential debate, the False Equivalence Trumpists were out in full force, complaining about “both candidates” being equally bad and lamenting that they “once again have to choose the lesser of two evils.” 

Though they carry an air of intellectual superiority in their assertions, False Equivalence Trumpists are among the most intellectually lazy of all of the Trumpists types. 

Obviously, both candidates have sold out to a special interest, lied, supported an unwise policy, or made a big mistake. Same as it ever was.  But from that truth, False Equivalence Trumpists quickly jump to the safety of “both sides do it equally,” instead of digging into the facts to determine which candidate does it more.  In a democracy, doing that kind of qualitative differentiation is a voter’s duty, and they consistently shrink from it.

Because False Equivalence Trumpists find it distasteful to be held accountable for supporting an imperfect candidate, they stubbornly cling to the truth of “both sides do it,” but not the whole truth.  The whole truth is that any fair-minded analysis comparing Trump and Biden will show that Trump is much more incompetent, much more bigoted, much more dishonest, and much more corrupt. 

But this group of Americans lacks either the judgement to see that truth, or the courage to speak it.

The False Equivalence Trumpists are top-of-mind right now because, we are entering the final month of the presidential campaign with about 6 percent of the voters somehow still undecided.  Tragically, these pathologically indecisive Americans could be decisive on November 3rd.  The fact that the fate of the nation, and maybe even the planet, falls to this group of Americans is crazy making and terrifying.