The Rudderless Ethos of Trump Supporters in a Post-Trump Era

The identity, values, beliefs and characteristics of Trump supporters is simultaneously a difficult and very simple thing to nail down. On one side of the coin — it’s hard to generalize any group that’s made up of tens of millions of people. You’ve got a variety of races, socioeconomic classes, backgrounds, geographic locations and professional identities who have rallied behind him for a whole host of reasons. The Evangelicals are very different from the Texas-border-town Latinos who are also very different from elderly elite socialites in deep pocket Florida. They’re everywhere and, post-election, seemingly nowhere at the same time.

In the build-up to the 2020 election which, let me be very clear, Biden has won handily, everyone in the US, on both sides, was seemingly bracing for impact. Some anticipated another shocking Trump victory and the fall of democracy as we know it. Some expected a civil war. We got none of that. Instead, the election went relatively smoothly with no reports of aggressive voter intimidation or violence on either side and Biden won after a long, grueling vote count process. Even in the aftermath, as Trump is refusing to concede and Biden is moving forward naming cabinet members and planning his transition, on his own, Trump supporters are still, relatively, nowhere to be found. Why aren’t they marching in the streets? Where are the reports of AK-47’s being openly carried angrily through town squares, with nervous secret Biden supporters playing up their support hoping their betrayal isn’t obvious to the naked eye? Where’s Qanon?

The answer to all of this is a bit convoluted, and gets at the heart of where this community started in the first place, and where we’ll probably find them again in the future.

This is a community that used to thrive on the burnt edges of society, who believed theories no one else did and frequently got classified as the “crazy uncle” or “out-there cousin” of the family. They’ve never been taken too seriously, never had a large scale platform of legitimacy and have probably often felt outcast on some of the deepest of levels. I occasionally catch myself feeling badly for these people and the great American trick their lives have turned into. Then I see one screaming racial epithets on television and that empathy quickly disintegrates.

First off, I want to discuss the different archetypes of a Trump supporter, because there are a few distinct ones worth nothing. There’s the loud mouth bigot, America-first-no-matter-what Trump supporter who never graduated from college and/or high school who will believe anything he says. When he said he could murder someone in the street and some people would still follow him? These are the individuals to which he was referring. These individuals are perhaps waiting for the “voter fraud” trials to pan out and the held-out hope that their supreme ruler will squeak out another victory is what’s keeping them from hitting the streets.

Then there’s the Trump supporter who’s really just a republican who doesn’t want to consider all the nuance that being a democrat demands, and simply wants to feel better about themselves. Let’s be honest, democrats are liberal elites flying from coast to coast, looking down upon the poor unfortunate souls bottom-feeding across America’s heartland. The democratic party has historically not resonated with rural America because more of us went to college, have high-paying jobs, live in cities, interact with people from other countries and have traveled outside of the continental United States. This urban versus rural divide is where the seeds for Trump’s base were sowed at the beginning of the 21st century, and where they continue to thrive to this day. These people simply don’t have time to protest because they have jobs to work, families to feed and mortgages to pay. Their lives are difficult, which is why they’re so susceptible to misinformation — on the superhighway of content they don’t have time to seek out the truth. They need their takes fast and punchy, with a little bit of exasperated salt on the rim — and Trump delivers that time after time.

Then there’s the diehard conservative who’s demanding we pry the traditional Republican party out of their cold, dead hands. These people refuse to accept that the integrity of their party has been shattered by the leader they mistakenly put in office, and still hold onto the Reagan-era of classical conservatism that’s simply long gone. Don’t get me wrong — that era had its problems, but your average political quandaries that we could all stomach. Not blatant lies, bigotry, white supremacy and lunacy. It’s time to face it — the Republican party has become something entirely different and being a respectable conservative has become much more complicated. Stick a fork in it, bury it, it’s done.

All of these individuals have been left behind in one form or another, either by technological advancements in the energy production industries or by the reckoning of racial politics. No matter what, Trump has held onto their support through another election cycle after an egregious run as president, and yet their side has lost. Trump is not going to be the president come January 20th, 2021 and I’m looking at his base and thinking — now what?

What happens to the group of political supporters that have shattered conventions of what it means to support a candidate? Who have prioritized panache over truth? Violence over direction? Whose undying devotion to this man has created an entirely new racist, xenophobic, homophobic and sexist archetype? Their identities have tainted the image of the republican party forever, and yet have also revealed the importance of acknowledging the unacknowledge-able across America, and shown what evil can come when you don’t.

The latter two are simple — they’ll stay republicans and support whomever inherits the ticket next election cycle. I believe there’s a way for them to reclaim political legitimacy in the eyes of the other half of the country — and I hope the leaders in charge will enable them to do so.

As for his diehard base? The group of societal misfits for whom Sturgis is Burning Man and the New York Times a mass panderer of the liberal elite sex trafficking ring? I really don’t know.

The minions have lost their mad king and I’m wondering… what’s next? Do they continue to support him and his ideals post-White House? Do they move on to another Republican ideological leader whose bound to inherit the base during the next election cycle? Do they all take up anti-racist reading lists and educate themselves out of shame and embarrassment?

Most likely, they grow quiet for a few years and some grow out of it, while others become emboldened by other causes. I have to admit when I think of all of these enraged, confused, lost, ignorant individuals their futures make me sad. Trump gave them an outlet. A heartbreakingly misled one but an outlet all the same, and without that I don’t know where they go.

Let me be clear, I don’t have any empathy for people who thrive off of hating so much, but I also think it’s critical to understand where the ethos and pathos of a Trump supporter came from in order to understand ourselves as a society better as well as where we’ll go next.

My best guess is they continue to stew, continue to share, and continue to gather. Let’s hope these gatherings and actions don’t end in violence — but as we saw in countless counter-protest instances this past year — they might. They’ll continue to share misinformation and thrive off of outrage. They’ll continue to attempt to grow their numbers, and this is where the true significance of my message lies.

This is a very real group in America. If Trump did anything helpful for our country, it was revealing to us that there is a huge group of people out there for whom truth has been lost in the ether. They’re so far from the reality shared by the coasts and democratic party that it feels nearly impossible to get them back. Their deep-seeded anger at the society that abandoned them has fed cyclical outrage driven by distrust — which feeds off of misinformation. I mean, can you blame them? If I thought a group of Hollywood and political elites were selling their babies into a sex trafficking ring online I’d probably be pretty pissed at the American dream too.

That’s why it’s crucial we change the narrative when it comes to information and political identity in this country.

I’m so sick of hearing about media bias without any form of media literacy in tow. Why do we put so much emphasis on the evils of ideological bubbles formed by social media sites’ algorithms without discussing anything individuals can do to help themselves decipher whether what they’re reading is true? Where’s the agency, accountability and actionable steps? If Trump’s most ardent supporters had received an education in media literacy long ago he would’ve never won, no doubt about it.

Here’s one thing everyone can do — decide for yourself what your process is for truth-finding. What sources do you trust? Why? How can you tell?

Once you’ve done that, your political leanings shouldn’t take too long to form. Once you start listening to truth, there are a few acceptable viewpoints and the rest become illegitimate.

The centralized problem with the Trump supporter is an identity-based one. These are people who have no idea how to find the truth for themselves — which is why they rely on someone else to tell them. This is why they were chanting two opposite messages on election day at voting centers, and why their conspiracy message boards have been silent since the election was called. There’s no informational accountability, no ownership, and that’s the crack in their foundation that’s brought them to a crashing halt. If you don’t know what the truth is — there’s no way to motivate, no way to steer, and no way to work towards anything of substance.

These people now have a choice — they can listen to what the reality is, or get left behind. It’s a choice that all of us have to make, on both sides of the aisle, and continue to make every time we hop online. It is, in a sense, one of the only things that is equally true of everyone in this nation. My hope is that if enough of us practice media literacy in a real, deep way — not just in a way that confirms our own biases — perhaps, one day, slowly but surely, our moral compases will start to align again. Maybe one day we’ll all be working off of the same political key again. We’ll all have the same facts to form opinions from. We’ll all believe that Sandy Hook actually happened.

The tragic fault in the Trump base is that this reality they believe, this foundation they’re standing on, sooner or later is going to crack. The fragility that comes with conspiracy is because it’s all smoke and mirrors. Either society will phase them out and lead to their marginalization, or their belief systems will alienate them to the point of no return. Either way, it’s not a pretty ending.

It won’t happen soon — we’re still deeply divided. But I believe the solution lies in individual decisions, individual deciphering, and an acceptance that information is a two way street. You’re telling the source just as much as it’s telling you — you can hold “truths” to be self-evident, or heave a healthy dose of questioning into the mix and hope it comes out smooth. It’s up to you, you’re in the driver’s seat.