I spend a fair bit of time talking to Trump voters. Most UK citizens don’t. Since 2020 less than 20% of people tend to have a positive view of Donald Trump. The UK media doesn’t like former President Trump either (with the possible exception of the Telegraph). This in turn leads to, what I feel is sometimes a one-dimensional, superficial understanding of who Trump voters are. They are often just seen as mad, conspiracy theorists, MAGA-hat wearers. Admittedly, Trump has sold an estimated 2 million MAGA hats and 48% percent of Republicans believe the COVID-19 vaccine to be unsafe. So I am going to try and use some of the polling (because it’s a Politics on a Tangent article) as well as some of my personal conversations to build up a more three-dimensional picture of who these voters are.
Polarisation
Perhaps one of the most interesting things to talk to Trump voters, or Americans more generally, about is polarisation. They all see it, most voters hate it. But who do they blame? The ‘other side’. In fact, while they detest many of the symptoms — the destruction of familial relationships, the toxicity of social media and the unreliability of news — many can’t see a way around it. “When it is so clearly right and wrong, light and darkness,” one person told me, “how can there be a middle ground?”. Highly moral issues are cited in support of that: abortion, freedoms and ‘attacks on religion’.
This is increasingly difficult when people are increasingly only interacting with people of their own beliefs. Their churches, news consumption, and social circles are increasingly made up of just those who agree with them. With the lack of a trusted national broadcaster, such as we have in the UK with the BBC, the news is increasingly partisan. Those on the right tend to get news from Fox, podcasts and reports from their friends and family. Other, less mainstream news channels also exist such as Infowars, the Daily Wire, and Breitbart which are increasingly taking viewers further from Fox and other mainstream channels.
This is a fundamental issue for those trying to ‘fix’ American politics. When media (including social media) and relationships are increasingly becoming echo chambers, how can you develop a degree of respect or decency for your opponents? When the incentives for politicians are to attack their opponents to drive up turnout and present themselves as the only option, there is no leadership trying to undo the partisan gulf in the UK. And when voters cannot agree on the truth, as with the result of the 2020 election, it is hard to see how any of this can be undone. While voters may not like hyper-partisanship in practice, there is no real appetite from most voters to take the practical steps to undo it.
Trump
Of the ¾ of the Republican party who supported Trump in the primary there is a huge range of views of Trump. Perhaps the most common sentiment across the United States is that, “out of the millions of wonderful people in this country, how come these are the two options that we get?”. Of GOP voters there is discomfort with Trump amongst perhaps two-thirds. Perhaps half of these are people who would still vote for Trump in a heartbeat. They don’t like his rhetoric, his personal life, the way he behaves on the world stage, his rants formerly on Twitter, now on Truth Social. One woman I spoke to told me she would be voting for Trump “like this” and pinched her nose. That didn’t stop her and her husband voting for Trump in the primaries and planning on voting for him in the election. When challenged on such matters, you often hear the suggestion that “he is surrounded by good people” — as in they are fans of some of the advisors and aides, who they trust to keep him on track.
This is something which often confuses UK viewers: why are Evangelical Christians such big fans of Trump? At the most basic level, they like his policies. They give him credit for overturning Roe v Wade (which enshrined Abortion as a constitutional right) through his appointments of conservative justices to the Supreme Court - which for many is the biggest political issue. They like his foreign policy and approve of his energy policies - including the Keystone XL pipeline. A lot of voters also appreciate his background - from business and not from politics. This means that many of them accept the suggestion that Trump is fighting for them against the elite of Washington - who many voters feel is far away from them and doesn’t represent their interests properly.
What then of the criminal charges? They are quickly dismissed as politicised cases and elements of a weaponised judiciary. This is why I feel that any attempt to prevent Trump from being President via lawfare will backfire spectacularly. It essentially guaranteed Trump the GOP nomination after the indictments caused a spectacular ‘rally-around-the-flag’ effect.
Pessimism
There is a huge amount of pessimism regarding the future. I have been repeatedly told by a number of people that “the USA cannot survive another four years of Biden.” Similarly Democrats (who I speak to fewer of) see Trump as an existential threat to democracy. An AP Poll shows 67% of voters thinking this election will be “extremely” or “very important” for the future of Democracy in the USA. At the far end of the spectrum you hear Republicans worry about the Democrats ‘plan’ to “flood” the country with immigrants who, given their race and the promises of the Democratic party, are expected to become a reliable voting bloc for Democrats. One Republican ad I saw suggested this ‘plan’ was intended to turn the US into an effective one-party state.
There is also a genuine fear amongst some of civil war or cessationism of some states. I personally am very sceptical, but with Republican Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene calling for a ‘national divorce’, new film Civil War coming out in a few days and comment houses from Chatham House to Unherd all evaluating the chances, it is at the very least something many Americans have a nagging fear about. There seem to just be too many differences between the reliably red and reliably blue states. YouGov polling has found that nearly a quarter of US citizens support their state seceding from the Union. Were there to be any kind of division between the states it would be unlikely to be particularly violent, but it is not out of the question for some kind of national divide or demand from states to have significantly more power.
One of the most difficult questions to answer for many of those I have spoken to is how America can be fixed. Some of the suggestions include strong leadership, such as the generals of old or Churchill or Reagan. Another is the aforementioned national divorce while others advocate for a ‘better national debate’ or a better understanding of the other side. The more watered down version of national divorce or cessation is greater state’s rights. Media and social media are also blamed, and undermining those are also mentioned. Many others simply struggle to see any real solution.
Religion
The USA stands out from a lot of other liberal democracies (in the technical sense) in that religion is still a key feature of the political discourse. 68% of voters identify as religious (made up of 33% protestant, 22% catholic, and 13% other). This is true despite a marked decrease in church attendance and membership across the board. That being said, for Republican voters, 44% still attend church weekly, with a further 32% attending church, only less regularly. This means that understanding religion still is important when thinking about Republican and Trump voters.
Religion informs beliefs as broad and expansive as abortion, gender questions, questions of freedom and states rights. These are issues where Trump, despite being not personally particularly religious or necessarily moral, has been very close to Evangelical Christians. That is why they have shifted from being one of the least persuaded Republican voting blocs during the 2016 primary to his most loyal group. He has appointed strong conservative justices, as he promised, which has led to the overturning of Roe v Wade. He supports families and attacks ‘woke institutions’.
Immigration
The two biggest issues brought up by Trump voters I spoke to were immigration and abortion. By immigration people tend to refer to the massive influx of illegal migrants crossing over the border from Mexico. Which in the last three years is thought to have been more than three times the number that crossed the border over the equivalent period of Trump’s administration. I have already mentioned some of the fears that a number of Trump voters have over the Democratic ‘plan’ to flood the country with immigrants.
The problems Republicans have with illegal immigration are not limited to that only. Many view it as a significant trigger to crime (despite research suggesting the opposite). 42% of the population, according to Gallup, believe that immigration increases crime, compared to 7% who think it decreases it. This may be because those who share ethnicities with immigrants are more likely to commit crimes. With 67% of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America and Hispanic Americans three times more likely to be imprisoned than white Americans (according to Pew Research Centre) that is an easy, if not correct assumption to make.
Republicans also tend to see immigration as part of other problems such as the Fentanyl epidemic which is sweeping the USA. Huge amounts of illegal substances flow across the border every day. It also places significant pressure on local infrastructure, particularly health and housing. Many voters are also worried by a mounting percentage of people in America having been born abroad - with nearly 14 million more foreign-born citizens in the US in 2020 (though still at the relatively low percentage of 13.7% of the overall population).
Abortion
One of the key factors which keeps many Republican voters, particularly evangelical christians, voting for Trump is his pivotal role in overturning Roe v Wade as I have already mentioned. Trump's appointment to the Supreme Court of a number of conservative Justices — Coney Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. It was through these Justices that the case, which essentially suggested that the right to an abortion was enshrined in the Constitution, was overturned in the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in 2022. This was a move supported by 38% of the general population but 70% of Republicans, including by nearly half who “strongly support” the ruling. This broadly maps across the 60% of self-ID Republicans who say that abortion should be illegal in either most or all circumstances.
Why is this so crucial for many Republicans? Because it is a life or death question. If abortion is murder then abortion is the largest systemic killing in American history. Estimates range between 600,000 and 900,000 babies being aborted each year. That is why for many of the Republicans I have spoken to over the last year, abortion is the biggest issue. That is the go to issue as an answer for “how has Trump been an effective President?” or “how has he reflected your agenda?”. This can be hard to comprehend for a UK audience, where the debates over abortion tend to be somewhat fringe arguments compared to the USA. Abortion is going to be one of the crucial issues in the election in November, as I have written about here.
Personal Appeal
There is a degree of personal appeal which Trump does have, despite some tension some voters have over his moral life. Much has been made of the ‘realignment’ which has seen Republicans win over traditionally Democratic, white, working-class (often male) voters while Democrats seize an increasingly large chunk of the college-educated population. Trump has, as a non-career politician, solidified his support with these voters.
For many voters he comes across as genuine, funny and anti-establishment politician. He has no political experience and this is something many voters appreciate — he is not beholden to existing interests, he has not been corrupted by Washington and he can fight for the ‘real people’. He is, to a significant extent, a ‘self-made man’ and this also has significant appeal to a certain section of the electorate. He speaks his views and they often are different to any Washington consensus and match what many voters are thinking. He has in the past very effectively leant into the ‘man of the people’ leading the fight against ‘the establishment’ and voters also like this.
The Future
This presents a fascinating question regarding the future of the Republican party. Trump is both a cause and a face of a changing Republican party. Whether the party will continue their journey towards Trumpism after Trump has retired from the scene (probably after the next election or his second term) remains to be seen. Has Trump permanently shattered Evangelical Christian voters' reservations about their candidate's personal life? Are moderate Republicans still a force in the party? Will a Trumpian style of politics last or is Trumpism tied to Trump himself? All of this questions will be answered in time - we may just have a long wait.