Debra Thompson is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds up a gift he received from local residents as he speaks to the media in Swannanoa, North Carolina, on October 21, 2024, after observing cleanup efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which devastated the region.JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
According to the polling website FiveThirtyEight, 43.1 per cent of Americans have a favourable opinion of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
In many ways, this is absolutely stupefying.
Mr. Trump is an outlandish presidential candidate by any measure. His campaign speeches are riddled with lies and exaggerations, especially about migrants, transgender people, his political opponents, the economy, and his accomplishments as president. He was the first American president to be convicted of felony crimes. The year he last won the presidency, Mr. Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes. He is easily baited and barely coherent. Oh, and he also tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election and incited the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
From outside the Republican Party, Mr. Trump’s appeal is baffling. He has all the traits of a grandiose narcissist. He is self-absorbed, abrasive, over-confident, reckless, manipulative, thin-skinned, quick to anger, envious and entitled. I’ve met many men like Donald Trump, though none with the ability to start a nuclear war.
From the inside, however, Mr. Trump’s supporters embody the hallmarks of a cult of personality.
In comparative politics, a personality cult typically refers to the use of propaganda in authoritarian regimes that create a charismatic image of a dictator, often by making absurd claims about his virtues and abilities. A personality cult is more than democratically achieved popularity, or the kind of charismatic authority that sociologist Max Weber suggested would motivate people to follow an exceptional leader. Rather, it involves the widespread symbolic elevation of a leader, featuring a resilient, almost religious devotion to him irrespective of his successes or failures.
This is a rational, though bizarre, explanation for the durability of Mr. Trump’s popularity despite his many shortcomings. Though he is running for office in a democratic regime, research on Mr. Trump’s campaigning style suggests that his personality profile is extreme. Even compared to other populist leaders around the world, he is an outlier of outliers. And in the eyes of Mr. Trump’s supporters, he is, indeed, the best chance for “saving” America.
Mr. Trump’s cult of personality is having a significant effect on how this election is playing out: it is the glue that holds together what would otherwise be a fractured conservative movement in the United States.
On one end of the conservative spectrum lie what Vox columnist Zack Beauchamp has labelled the ”neopatriarchal conservatives.” Comprising the Christian right and other social conservatives, they are exemplified by the natalist ideology of vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance and The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. This wing of the Republican Party is concerned about falling birth rates and what they see as the country’s disintegrating social values, and propose a return to more traditional (read: hierarchical) formulations of the American family.
This faction is distinct from so-called “Barstool conservatives,” named after the popular sports website founded by its controversial owner, Dave Portnoy. These are people who don’t really have any moral qualms about abortion or same-sex marriage, but feel hampered by political correctness, aggrieved by the #MeToo movement and the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion, and generally believe that “the left” has gone too far in its preachy constraints on the freedom of individuals to do and say whatever they want.
Neopatriarchal and Barstool conservatives don’t actually agree on much in terms of policy. But they both love Mr. Trump.
The neopatriarchal conservative wing believes that Mr. Trump is just short of ordained. Through his appointments to the Supreme Court, he delivered on a long-standing, fundamental goal of the movement: the demise of Roe v. Wade and the decimation of women’s reproductive rights, including limiting access to abortion and birth control. Though Mr. Trump routinely evades answering the question of whether he would sign a national abortion ban, that is a clear goal of the movement and a real possibility, should he win the election in November.
Barstool conservatives, meanwhile, admire Mr. Trump’s brashness: his ego, his audacity, his strongman politics, his locker-room talk, his attitude that rules are for other people. Mr. Trump’s grievance politics and negative messaging is appealing, especially for a generation of young men who resent the “woke left” for telling them what they can and cannot say, who acutely feel the pressures of economic downturns and high inflation, and for whom Mr. Trump’s antics (which have been present in national politics for a good portion of their adult lives) are perfectly normal. They are, ultimately, entertained by Mr. Trump.
The alliance of these strange bedfellows in the House of Trump doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to work. And, unfortunately, it seems to be working.