Why
Do Trump Supporters Act Like His Election Is Certain?
By any objective standard, the president’s prospects for
reelection are looking down.
Joe Biden is continuing to lead him in trial heats nationally (by 8.1 percent in
the latest RealClearPolitics averages) and in most
battleground states. The president’s job approval
numbers are lower than they’ve been since last December. People
are still very afraid of COVID-19,
and despite one good
monthly jobs report, the economy is still in the ditch, with
unemployment higher than at any time since the 1930s.
Yes, yes, of course, there’s tons of time to go, the economy could
somehow turn around and that second “wave” of the coronavirus could fail to
appear, and Joe Biden could do or say something self-destructive. But the
possibility of a Trump revival is not the same thing as its probability, much
less certainty. Yet as Politico notes,
there’s little doubt in MAGA-land that Trump will win in November, and maybe
win big:
Interviews with more than 50 state, district and
county Republican Party chairs depict a version of the electoral landscape that
is no worse for Trump than six months ago — and possibly even slightly better.
According to this view, the coronavirus is on its way out and the economy is
coming back. Polls are unreliable, Joe Biden is too frail to last, and the
media still doesn’t get it….
“The more bad things happen in the country, it
just solidifies support for Trump,” said Phillip Stephens, GOP chairman in
Robeson County, N.C., one of several rural counties in that swing state that
shifted from supporting Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. “We’re calling
him ‘Teflon Trump.’ Nothing’s going to stick, because if anything, it’s getting
more exciting than it was in 2016.”
This year, Stephens said, “We’re thinking
landslide.”
Politico found that if you ask Republicans why Trump’s going to
win, they generally offer explanations ranging from the hyper-optimistic
(everything will be back to normal any day now and a happy back-at-work
electorate will reward Trump for saving them), to the aggressively ignorant
(all polls showing Biden ahead are fake, because they were dead wrong last time
—well which they actually
weren’t), to pure disinformation (Democrats are throwing away the
election by calling for the abolition of police departments and confiscation of
private property, beginning with guns).
But what’s more interesting is what Trump supporters really think,
and why they appear so determined to
project self-confidence, unlike their endlessly neurotic Democratic
counterparts. After all, there is no established principle in politics that thinking you’ll win makes
it more likely that you will win, beyond a minimal belief that it’s possible.
And in fact, it’s very clear that in 2016, the assumption that Hillary Clinton
had the election in the bag hurt her, perhaps fatally, since potential
supporters felt free to stay at home, vote for a minor party, or even cast a
“protest vote” for Trump.
So why are Trump-supporting Republicans so relentlessly upbeat,
and dismissive of objective evidence that points in the direction of defeat?
Here are five theories:
1. They’re drinking his own Kool-Aid
Trump supporters are by definition big fans of a man who never
admits mistakes or weaknesses, expresses narcissistic, self-congratulatory
hubris every other hour, and hates “losers” as much as Jesus Christ loved them.
Perhaps they are simply following the leader, who appears to systematically
block out any source of information that doesn’t tell him what he wants to
hear.
2. They believe “enthusiasm” is the ball game
As is well known, Trump’s reelection
strategy, and his behavior in office, have been heavily oriented
towards “base mobilization,” to the extent of sometimes excluding any serious
effort to identify or persuade swing voters, much less Democrats. To the extent
that mobilization is facilitated by enthusiasm,
getting the MAGA faithful to believe they are marching in a perpetual victory
parade is presumably valuable. It’s possibly relevant that polls show a
majority of Republicans are motivated by a desire to support Trump, while a
majority of Democrats are more focused on beating Trump than on electing Biden.
Trump voters want to know they are part of a historic reelection campaign that
will take America another step closer to the paradise of the 1950s, not into
some socialist nonwhite dystopia.
3. They want to “own the libs”
One bond Trump has with his supporters is in deeply enjoying the
discomfort of their common enemies. They are aware that the vast majority of
left-of-center Americans don’t simply dislike the president, but dislike him
intensely. Many view the prospect of this strange “accidental president”
serving another four years with genuine horror. So it’s great sport for Trump
supporters to confront them with this possibility, raised to the level of
certainty. It’s mass schadenfreude, with
a dollop of Trump’s own signature cruelty.
4. They truly despise the “elite” sources of adverse information
If you are convinced that polls are all “fake” and most of the
media — including Fox News on occasion — just systematically lie, all to
benefit Trump’s enemies, then it’s a short leap to assume that the “truth” they
are hiding is MAGA-rific or even glorious. Similarly, once one is convinced
that “real Americans” are in the president’s corner, then anything (like a bad
poll or mockery of a self-destructive Trump video clip) emanating from sources
that either “don’t get it” or are actively hostile to this country and its
interests simply cannot be credited as “real.” Believing that Trump might lose,
therefore, can become an anti-patriotic act, or a sign of being duped by
contemptuous wrong-doers.
5. They are preparing to contest any defeat
The most troubling possibility is that Trump supporters understand
the president is laying the
groundwork for contesting a defeat, and want to help him do so. Here’s
how I recently described Trump’s
efforts to undermine, in advance, the legitimacy of the November election in
case he happens to lose it:
Trump is now regularly claiming that voting by
mail is inherently illegitimate, except for grudging
exceptions for people who can’t make it to the polls. So,
presumably, states that allow for no-excuse voting by mail in November are
holding “substantially fraudulent” elections. That’s 34 states who do so by law
(including battleground states Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota,
Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), 11 more that
so far are waiving excuse requirements this pandemic year
(including New Hampshire), and another that may be
forced to do so by a lawsuit (Texas).
So in a very real sense, unless Trump backs off
his claims that voting by mail means a “rigged election,” he’s letting us know
that he and his supporters will be justified in challenging any adverse results
in states that allow this terrible practice to take place.
Keep in mind that Trump went to a lot of trouble to claim he
was robbed of a popular-vote majority in 2016 (thanks to “millions of illegal
votes” for Hillary Clinton for which he offered not a shred of evidence), even
though it didn’t ultimately matter. One possible rationale was to convince his
followers Democrats always cheat,
meaning their victories should prospectively be discounted or challenged. If on
Election Night 2020, Donald Trump claims victory on the basis of early returns,
is there any doubt his fans and media allies will join him in crying out
“fraud!” to the high heavens should late mail ballots drift in and reverse the results?
I don’t think so. And either consciously or unconsciously, some of them may be
anticipating that fraught scenario already. To a significant number of the
faithful, Trump is not just a president, but an embodiment of America, and even God’s Annointed.
He can’t fail. He can only be failed.
