Who are these Americans who vote for the criminal felon, liar, mysognynist, racist, adulterer, rapist, tax cheat, would-be Fascist autocrat and twice impeached Donald Trump?
Hillary Clinton summed it up well: They are the "deplorables" of America. Thanks to democracy, a large swath of the American population thrives on mediocrity and ignorance, on racism and xenophobia, on a vulgar culture of drunkenness and violence, and on bigoted religiosity.
Mediocrity, Ignorance and Inferiority Complexes:
The bulk of the MAGA crowd have less than a high school diploma and are literally ignorant of their country and its place in the world. They often blame the media and the elites because they have an inferiority complex toward intellectuals and educated people (the stereotypical "nerd"). The nativist MAGA crowd knows it is inferior. It knows it has fallen behind by believing that the world in the 21st century can still be dealt with like the pilgrims and pioneers of the 16th century: A cabin in the woods, a gun, and no government.
Still, the media too are to blame for catering to this mostly rural segment of poorly educated American society with hypermagnified self-ingratiating myths of superiority, manifest destiny of the "greatest nation on earth and in history". The fact, however, is that it is immigrants, and not those native backwoods peasants who hate immigrants, that make America great with its science, technology, military prowess and entrepreneurship. It was the wealthy elites that produced the founding fathers, not the peasants who served as mere cannon fodder for the wars fought by the elites (independence, secession, civil war etc.)
As both the demographics of the United States have changed, and as the world is rejecting power monopolies, the MAGA crowd are nostalgic of a time that is no longer. And in their ignorance, they refuse to adapt and adjust. That is the essence of conservatism. John Stuart Mill once said, “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives". Instead of accepting that change is inexorable, they dig their heels, reject evolution, cling to religion, and think that a moron like Trump can take them back to an America of apple pie, baseball, hot dogs, Sunday church and Chevrolet. The MAGA phenomenon is probably the last breath of this vanishing pool of imbeciles. Problem is they still make up half of America, and the Electoral College scam keeps them afloat.
Xenophobia and Racism:
Ignorance is generally the crucible of racism. Racists are ignorant people who do not understand difference. Just as any new idea that is different from their own ideas is suspicious, anyone that seems different (skin color, clothing, accent, etc.) scares the hell out of them and drives them to be hateful. Before the Internet and television, many people in rural America had never seen the ocean or seen a dark-skinned person. To them, a black or dark-skinned person was such a shocking revelation that they attributed to them at best a lesser human nature and worse an evil nature. To this day, the ignorance of rural America (that refuses to study genetics and biology, and prefers the barbaric bible as a source of knowledge) still makes its residents vicious racists who can't seem to accept a black or dark-skinned person as their equal.
These are the bulk of the MAGA Trump voters and the bedrock of southern racism, the KKK, and segregation. They hate everyone that does not look, pray, or sound like them (Blacks, Mexicans, Jews, Catholics, Asians, etc.), and they love those who look like them (in fact their ancestors the English, Germans, Scandinavians, etc.). That is why they are anti-immigration. They don't want more of the "others" in this country, as if this country first belonged to them to begin with, and ignoring the fact that it was immigrants who built this country and gave ot its greatness.
Credulity, Religion, and Outlier Beliefs
Again, ignorance does not give a person sufficient latitude to make rational judgments on events surrounding them. Every living being has a specialization that allows it to survive in its ecosystem. Two living beings with identical specializations end up competing with one of them ultimately disappearing. For us humans, our specialization is our brain. We don't have wings, claws, poisonous glands, etc... We are very average when it comes to our physical capabilities, we don't run fast, swim fast, fly high.... But our brain - intelligence - allows us to magnify our physical attributes with tools, instruments, machines, etc. Problem is our brain wants answers to all questions raised by the environment. When we have facts to explain something, our brain is satisfied with the answer. But we do not have facts to explain something, our brain invents an answer, credible or not. This is where religions and weird beliefs come from in human societies. The more verified proven facts we have, the less we rely on "magical" religious explanations, and the less facts we have the more we rely on religion and weird beliefs.
Now where do verified facts come from? They come from the opposite of ignorance. Donald Trump is certainly the master of ignorance, which he doubles with a Mafioso criminal mind. But of all MAGA idiots out there besides the boss, one person stands out and embodies ignorance to the hilt, and her name is Marjorie Taylor Greene.
I have pity for these people as much as I hate them. They are a living tragedy.
Machismo, Big Balls, and Brawn (no brain).
Being the ignoramuses described above, Trump voters think like Hollywood fictional characters: They look for heroes, superheroes, charismatic terminators who can take the enemy down with one blow. The "Strongman" disorder that is not the sole purview of American barbarians, since many autocratic dictatorisl countries have their "strongmen" in power. The difference, though, is that in backward countries like China, Russia, Myanmar, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc... these strongmen ascended to power by force, by coercion, by cheating in elections.... and against the will of their people.
Unfortunately for the US, the ignorant dumb and ugly rural Americans are electing such a tyrant to power. They crave his authoritarianism. They adulate his "masculine bravado". They want the superhero. The savior. The mediocrity of Hollywood has confused reality and fiction in their minds, and they genuinely believe that a strong bullshitter like Donald Trump is the savior who will save America from progress. He will stop progress and take us back in time. Note that the "Make American Great Again" implies a return to the some lost paradise past. "Again" is a throwback to a time in the past. Just as in any Hollywoodian fictional narrative, the superhero will erase the evil and take us back to the previous period. But this is fiction, pure and simple. Donald Trump can never take America back to the heyday of the 1800s, or even that of the 1950s. If his herd of ignoramuses do actually bring him to power, they are in for a big disappointment.
Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, a Republican who served as White House chief of staff to Trump, has warned the country that the former president is a fascist. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)
The author with her family on a vacation in the San Juan Islands in Washington state. Tiffany Williams Photography