this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
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The liberal framework cannot explain why millions of people support Trump because it refuses to acknowledge that capitalism itself generates such movements.
This is why we see liberals using increasingly mystical language (cult). Liberals reduce the Trump phenomenon to irrational devotion to a demagogue, framing it as a psychological or cultural pathology rather than a political response to material conditions. This obscures the fact that Trump's base is not a brainwashed sect but a coalition of reactionary class forces—primarily the petty bourgeoisie, sections of the labor aristocracy, and segments of the bourgeoisie itself—whose interests align with right-wing populism in the face of capitalist crisis.
By calling it a "cult," liberals dismiss the genuine (if misguided) grievances of workers who have been destroyed by neoliberalism.
I don’t disagree that this kind of language is unhelpful. The quickest way to turn someone off is to attack them. However, this isn’t a response to conditions. Because if it were the people voting for Trump should realize he is not now nor ever going to help them economically. Just today he said he doesn’t care if car prices go up. He doesn’t buy cars. He has no clue what ordinary financial hardships people face. Hell he thought you had to show ID to buy groceries. What Trumps popularity is is a tribal reaction. Trump has turned it into an us vs. them and the right is eating it up. They want to believe the ills they feel are someone else’s fault. Whether it’s trans, brown, or black people. It’s not a white Cristian’s fault. When in reality it really is someone else’s fault, just not the someone else they are being to lied to about. As soon as the majority of people realize this is all about class, rich vs. poor (well at least not rich), greedy billionaires vs every one else, that’s when the shit is going to hit the fan. Of course since the rich own all of the media, they may never realize.
I kind of agree with both you and the person you're responding to.
Trump has quite a lot of supporters and they don't all support him for the same reasons.
There definitely are hardline, cultish supporters who essentially worship Trump and will accept any sort of behaviour from him. And he definitely has supporters who are motivated more by hate than any personal need.
But on the other hand, I think that many Trump voters genuinely believe that he's the best option to advance their own interests.
Many of Trump's voters are people who are desperately poor and in dire need. They are - often through no fault of their own - un or underemployed (and thus in poverty), undernourished, and underserviced in many other ways (healthcare, education, etc.). It's a huge problem in rural areas, largely ignored by the Democrats. And - while they're undereducated - they aren't necessarily stupid. They know they're getting fucked over. And they know the government isn't doing much of anything to help them. Both of these things are true, not lies told by Trump. They are very angry, and justifiably so.
And so along comes Trump and he offers them simple - and at first glance intuitively reasonable - solutions to their problems.
Take for example tariffs to make out-of-country goods more expensive to incentivize creating goods in the US. This solution makes intuitive sense. If companies are moving manufacturing out of the country because it's cheaper, why not make it more expensive to import goods? It probably will even increase certain types of jobs. In truth, there are a couple problems with this. For one thing, manufacturing job losses aren't exclusively due to outsourcing - automation is a bigger factor. For another, the economy is complicated and the tariffs will also have negative effects that will likely far outweigh any positive ones. But the average Trump supporter isn't equipped to understand that, and frankly neither is the average non-Trump supporter (I'm just repeating what I've heard from sources I trust, but really I don't know shit). Arguably even the average economist is just making an educated guess. Again, the economy is complicated.
Even for the more hateful aspects of his message, when people are angry and desperate (as many Trump supporters very justifiably are) they're more inclined to seek out destructive change (like tearing down the government) and look for scapegoats (so racist, anti-LGBT etc. messages become more appealing). That undertone of hate was always there, it wasn't caused by capitalism, but it's definitely exacerbated by anger and need. Happy people don't have as much need for scapegoats.