The Anthropology of the Trump Victory

Many of my friends and I are still struggling to understand how Trump was able to win the 2024 election. The anthropologist, Alex Hinton, has written a short article in The Conversation that seeks to explain the Trumpiverse, as he calls it.

I have long admired Alex Hinton’s work on genocide (see also here and here) and a book titled It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US  (2021, which I have not yet read), so this critique is not of his work so much as an insight into a common problem with anthropological analyses.

Hinton argues that to understand Trump voters, we need to listen and understand. This, of course, is basic to the anthropological approach. Anthropologists who confront “weird and exotic” beliefs and behaviors in foreign cultures suspend judgment and try to understand the logic of what to them, initially, seems illogical.

Hinton lists “five key lines of reasoning that, in varying combinations, informed the choices of Trump voters.” They are 1) Media distortion, 2) better economy, 3) the border invasion, 4) a proven record, and 5) the MAGA bull in a china shop (he’s a fighter). The problem is, however, that each of these lines of reasoning are either mistaken or misleading. Let’s take each in turn.

1) The claim of media distortion rests on the view that journalists are unfairly critical of Trump, and criticize everything he does. Hinton mentions Trump voters’ belief in the “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” an illogical dislike of Trump. But anyone who follows the news already knows his followers believe this. The question is, why do people believe this. Hinton also says:

“About 78% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independent voters say that Trump broke the law when he allegedly tried to overturn the 2020 election results. But less than half of Republicans think he did anything wrong.”

What high school social studies class did these Republicans take? How can they not be offended by Trump’s behavior in attempting to steal the 2020 election? (I’m also wondering about that 22% of Democrats. Usually, you can assume 8% of respondents misunderstood a question, or are the fringe that believes the moon landing was faked in a Hollywood studio, but how do 22% of Democrats dismiss the Jan. 6^th insurrection and the call to the Georgia Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes”?!) Is it really “distortion” to worry about Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election? The real question is how Trump supporters can look beyond this, and how they can excuse Trump's withholding funds for Ukraine until President Zelensky started an investigation on Biden.

2) On the economy, it is true that inflation hit during Biden’s term, but the seeds of that were also laid with money spent during the Trump administration, money well spent to assist during the pandemic. In fact, inflation was a global phenomenon, and the US handled it better than nearly every country, with The Economist noting the US economy was the envy of the world.

Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, AKA the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, called for approximately $1.2 trillion in spending, about $550 billion newly authorized spending on top of regular expenditures, which, as Biden noted, it was “the largest investment in our nation’s infrastructure in a generation.” As Heather Cox Richardson notes, “In the past three years, the Biden administration launched more than 66,000 projects across the country, repairing 196,000 miles of roads and 11,400 bridges, as well as replacing 367,000 lead pipes and modernizing ports and airports. … In his first term, Trump had promised a bill to address the country’s long-neglected infrastructure, but his inability to get that done made “infrastructure week” a joke. Biden got a major bill passed, but while the administration nicknamed the law the “Big Deal,” Biden got very little credit for it politically. Republicans who had voted against the measure took credit for the projects it funded, and voters seemed not to factor in the jobs and improvements it brought when they went to the polls last week.” That is what needs to be explained, not just what people are saying.

3) A border invasion. Here again, while there was a surge at the beginning of the Biden administration, border crossings now are below the level they were under Trump. The question should be, why are so many people upset over immigration (82% or Republicans said it was a “very important” issue in 2022, according to Hinton), especially given that immigrants (both documented and undocumented) do most of the work native born Americans are unwilling to do, from farm work, slaughter house work, and in nursing homes. This is especially surprising given that much research shows that immigrants do not really compete with native-born Americans for jobs. The real questions are why have Republicans been able to demonize immigrants? Hinton notes that “In 2022, a poll found 7 out of 10 Republicans worried that “open borders” were part of a Democratic plot to expand liberals’ power by replacing conservative white people with nonwhite foreigners.” Why does this ludicrous belief make sense to people? And why, as Hinton notes, was Trump able to “play[…] into some people’s mostly false concerns that immigrants living illegally in the U.S. are freeloaders and won’t assimilate, as illustrated by his untrue September 2024 allegations that immigrants were eating pets in Ohio.” Why did Christians, who read a Bible that advocates helping the poor and needy, become so angry about immigrants?

4) A better record. Trump supporters claimed there were no wars under Trump, but that ignores the fact that the US was still fighting in Afghanistan during Trump 45. It was Trump’s poorly thought out agreement with the Taliban that forced Biden to pull the US out of Afghanistan, and though the administration could have perhaps handled the exit better, it was Trump’s decision to pull out in one year that doomed the anti-Taliban forces. Hinton notes that “Trump supporters’ perception is that American taxpayers foot a large portion of the bill, even though other countries are also giving money to Ukraine, and Israel is actually buying weapons from the U.S.” The question should be, why do they have these incorrect views?

5) Bull in a China Shop: Hinton concludes by saying that some people like him because he is a fighter. “Some in the Trumpiverse even view him as savior who will rescue the U.S. from a “radical left” apocalypse. For Trump stalwarts, MAGA is not simply a slogan. It is a movement to save an America that is on the brink of failure.” Again, we know this from news reports. The real cultural question is why, when the US economy is strong and we are the most prosperous country in human history, why would people believe the country is at risk to “leftists” and on the brink of failure?

Today’s America has changed from the recent past in three ways. First, the proportion of non-whites in the country has increased. Second, other parts of the world have developed, so US dominance of the world is less complete. And third, there has been a huge growth in inequality within the US. Much of the rage of Trump voters may be aimed at this growing inequality, but it took a political entrepreneur to pin the blame on immigrants. And that does not explain why voters would support a tin-pot “billionaire,” and why they think “He gets me.” That is the cultural question that needs to be addressed.

Furthermore, how can we understand why Trump’s outrageous behavior has been excused and even glorified. How is it that Hillary Clinton’s statement that half of Trump’s supporters were “a basket of deplorables” supposedly hurt her election efforts, while Trump’s numerous “gaffes” had no effect, especially his Access Hollywood video clip where he bragged that he could grab women by the genitals?

Part of the reason is that many (most?) voters are ignorant, to use a politically incorrect term that Trump might approve. A study from Datafor Progress showed that people who paid “a great deal” of attention to political news voted for Vice President Kamala Harris +6, while those who paid “none at all” went +19 for Trump. In conversations with relatives and strangers on a trip I've been on, I realize that even professionals may not follow or understand politics as deeply as I have often assumed.

Sometimes I wonder if the Roman elites asked similar questions, like "How can they believe that?!", when they faced an increasing number of followers of an irrational cult led by a preacher supposedly born of a virgin who came back to life after being crucified. I think there is still a lot of work for anthropologists to understand the deep cultural forces that make MAGA and Trumpiverse meaningful for its followers.

Are Paved Roads "Unnecessary Government Spending"? What is Government in a Democracy?

Yesterday we went out into the countryside to visit a friend who lives on a farm. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the leaves are just starting to turn colors. On the drive back home, we saw a Jeep Wrangler (a large 4 by 4) with a spare wheel cover like on the right. It says, "PAVED ROADS: Another Fine Example of Unnecessary Government Spending."

This struck me as peculiarly American. Of course, I understand that this is partly in jest; the website where this spare wheel cover is sold sells other humorous tire covers (see below) and notes that with this cover you can "and enjoy the stares when the guys behind you read it." (I'm actually not sure how you're supposed to see the faces of people behind you without crashing into the people in front of you, but that's another issue.)

The website where this is sold is called Extreme Terrain Off-Road Outfitters, and they have a smaller sticker for $5, about which they say: "Does your rig rarely see the road? Happier on the trail? Government annoy you? (You're not alone!) Get a few grins with this decal."  So they think it is funny. But at the same time, it is not. It is serious political propaganda.

The notion that the government is an oppressor is not new in the US, and it goes back to the 1776 Revolution, as exemplified by the famous Gadsden Flag with the coiled snake and the words "Don't Tread On Me" and the anti-tax Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Anthropologists also view states as fundamentally oppressive and exploitative institutions. Most people view the rise of states as the beginning of "civilization," but in fact, they are just created when a minority (a priesthood, an oligopoly, a nobility, elites, etc.) take control, organize armies and food deliveries, and maintain their superior power, usually through some sort of force (think military, or police, or praetorian guard). Since the first state, leaders have controlled the state to their own advantage. They may claim they need to do so to organize production or for defense, but the fact is the leaders of states have benefited at the expense of the majority of people (the peons).

But it seems a bit Luddite to believe that we can live, in our current world, "independently," "free" of any government constraint. That Jeep Wrangler was, after all, driving on I-64, a 6-lane interstate paid for by the federal and state governments. We would not be able to travel 30 miles to have lunch with friends if we did not have paved roads--which are paid for by the government!

The genius of American politics in the past was the combination of a belief in small government, to avoid bureaucracy and high taxes, along with the belief that science and technical progress supported by the government could solve human and social problems. From the battles between the two approaches, or rather, compromises between the two, progress could be made. But in the past few decades, a Libertarian ethos has arisen that holds that all government programs are evil: they waste money, undermine people's freedom, and don't work to boot. The fact is, this is sometimes true, but not always. The trick is to know when to use government programs, and when they do not work. The assumption that all government programs are bad is an ideological position promoted by a few super-wealthy Americans like the Kochs and Mercers, and it has grown in influence over recent decades.

Now the US electorate is again debating healthcare: progressive Democrats are proposing "Medicare for All." How this will be funded is not clear, and this is making many centrist voters nervous, especially those who have good health insurance and who worry that it will be taken away and that they will be forced to go into a bureaucratic government-funded health system. And yet, it is incredible that there are still millions of Americans who have no health insurance.

Two days ago, I went to a "Gala" (a fundraiser) for a local charity called "Gateway to Hope." They support low-income women who have cancer by helping them maintain their insurance payments, or helping them pay their mortgage and food bills, so they can concentrate on their treatment. Fact: 36% of women with breast cancer cannot work. If they lose their job, they can lose their insurance! It is shocking that people who get cancer risk losing their job and their house, or that they have to scrimp on food while they are trying to recover from chemotherapy. So it is shocking that such a charity is actually necessary, in one of the richest countries in the world. Why does this charity have to solicit from private donors? Everyone should be contributing, through their taxes, to spread the burden evenly. One would think that everyone would receive this kind of support as a matter of course, but that is not the case.

Hong Kong has also long been governed by the principle of limited government, but Hong Kong has a good public health care system that is very inexpensive to the patient. It is true that there are long waits for some specialties (especially for psychiatric care--suicidal patients have to wait many months to see a psychiatrist), but patients with money can pay out of pocket or buy insurance to get private treatment. Emergency treatment is available to all; the registration fee is HK$100 (US$13). Hong Kong also has many NGOs providing social services, but their funding does not totally come from private sources; many receive all or nearly all their funds from the government. The government audits them and makes sure the money is well spent, but the services are provided in a less bureaucratic form by NGOs. Even many private schools in Hong Kong get significant portions of their funds from the government.

I find that when people in Taiwan, China and even Hong Kong find that there is something wrong in society, they expect the government to step in and address the problem. That is not true for many Americans; Reagan famously said that the nine most terrifying words are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." The odd thing is that in a democracy, "the government" should be "we, the people." It is a sign of how much more democratization we need in America that people still see the government as an oppressor, even though they supposedly elect it every election.

So a wheel cover claiming that public roads are a waste of taxpayers' money is not funny. I wish it was, that we could agree that it was absurd. But as long as extreme individualist libertarians proclaim their notions of very limited government, it is not a joke but an example of an anti-social and selfish ideology.

Racism and individualism

I heard a very interesting NPR Fresh Air interview withRichard Rothstein yesterday on the podcast while doing errands (transcript here). He has just published a book that shows how US federal government policies during the New Deal (1933-1941) had systematically discriminated against Blacks. He noted, for example, that the term “redlining” referred to government maps that had neighborhoods marked with a red line where government loans were not allowed because residents of those neighborhoods were Black. I thought I had heard him on Fresh Air before, so I googled his name. Sure enough, I found that he was a guest on Fresh Air almost two years ago.

In my google search, I stumbled across a right wing blog by Jack Coleman of the Media Research Center’s “News Busters” (which claims to expose "liberal bias") that has a severely distorted take on Rothstein’s argument, and it—and especially the comments section—show serious lack of understanding of social forces.

First the distortions. Coleman begins by implying that though FDR is an iconic leader for liberals, his record with the New Deal is problematic. He then includes a transcript of sections of the Fresh Air interview, with key parts in bold, to highlight the facts raised by Rothstein. These facts (accurately reported) include:

• The Public Works Administration of the New Deal had explicit segregation policy, “So public housing policy created racial segregation where none existed before.”
• The Federal Housing Administration would not give loans to Blacks, so the suburbs that sprang up after WWII were all white.
• “Public housing became all-black in the inner city. And these two policies -- of public housing and Federal Housing Administration subsidization of suburbs -- are the two major factors that have created the segregation that we know today.”

 Coleman also highlights a part of the interview where Rothstein mentions that George Romney (Mitt’s father and former governor of Michigan) had tried, as Nixon’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, to only offer federal funds to communities that desegregated, but was blocked by the Nixon administration. He somehow thinks this exonerates Republicans from being charged with racism; seems to me it only exonerates Romney the Elder. Coleman also notes that unions prevented Blacks from joining, and that this discrimination was endorsed by the National Labor Relations Board, so was not merely a local action. Only after 1964 was this reversed. Again, this is supposed to indict all labor unions (American conservatives hate unions), but my take is that racism was deep-seated and made worse by state action, not that racism was somehow inherent in labor unions.

Rothstein’s point is made clear when he notes that for most Americans, homeownership is the main way that wealth was created and accumulated, and since subsidized home ownership was not possible for Blacks, it resulted in much lower levels of wealth for Blacks. While Blacks earn 60% as much as whites, they own only 5% as much wealth as whites. This provides Blacks with less of a buffer, which is why Blacks suffered more than whites from the Great Recession of 2008.

(As an aside, Rothstein repeats many of these points in his 2017 interview, including these 60% and 5% numbers. I checked the transcripts to see if the 2017 interview was not a repeat of the 2015 interview, but it is a new interview, albeit with some repetition. A good interviewee knows how to tell a story and focus on the core message, even if he/she is repeating himself. If I had been interviewed, I might have assumed listeners had heard me the first time, or would be annoyed by my repetition. As it happens, I only vaguely remembered the first interview, so he was right to repeat himself.)

Coleman’s take on all this is to imply that liberals have suppressed this information because it conveniently “perpetuates the myth that the Republicans are solely responsible for racism in this country.” This “myth” is, in fact, a surprise to me. A myth of a myth. While the Republicans are indeed the party of racism today, they were clearly the opposite from Lincoln through to Eisenhower. Coleman displays fake surprise that a Berkeley professor would do such research, and that such a story would end up on “liberal media.” This is rather disingenuous, since it is liberals in general who are concerned with questions of inequality (conservatives assume a free market would reduce inequality; they do not believe Picketty). Coleman likes the story only because he thinks it undermines the ideals and practices of the New Deal, which conservatives love to hate.

Implicit in Coleman’s critique is also the idea that if it had not been for “government interference,” there would not have been any discrimination. That is not how most liberals will take this story. They will see it as a case of how despite the liberal intentions of the FDR administration, Black interests were sacrificed because of racist notions at the time. Liberals will not see this story as undermining the New Deal. But conservatives are right that “good intentions” and government programs have the potential to cause great harm. Of course, not acting can also cause or perpetuate great harm.

The most up-voted comments to Coleman’s blog shows that right wing Americans are intensely individualistic. One comment is a resentful attack against “victimhood”, particularly of “blaming conservatives and Republicans, and whites in general.” Addressing Blacks, he/she says:

Stop blaming whites, stop blaming slavery, stop blaming Jim Crow and segragation [sic] and start taking an independent initiative to make a better life for yourself and your family. Continue to blame whites and don't be surprised to find your children and grandchildren still living in ghettos for generations to come.

 A comment to this comment says:

Until a spotlight is turned on black inner city culture...nothing will change. It's not about race...but it's always been about culture. Getting an education, being married, and bringing up your children to do the same is a large part of the answer. Why can't anyone say that in public today?

Because it is simplistic and wrong?

That writer falls back on the common “blame the victim” argument: Blacks are poor because of their individual behavior, because of their (implicitly) dysfunctional culture. Americans are intensely individualist and ahistorical. These commentators are not interested in how the past affects the present. Interestingly, they are not even following the logic of the blog (and the book), which is that federal government intervention made poverty worse for Blacks. These readers assume that by getting an education, being married, etc., one can single-handedly pull oneself up by the bootstraps, as the expression goes. The institutional factors like redlining that disadvantaged Blacks are completely ignored. While Rothstein is making institutional racism even more dramatically clear with his research, these commentators insist on individuals being Horatio Alger. They are saying, OK, racism happened, but get over it! Move on! If only it were so easy.

There are important individual choices that each person makes that affect their lifecourse. But any basic social science course (by which I mean sociology, anthropology, political science; not economics) will also teach us that we do not make these choices entirely freely. Interestingly, conservatives in Europe are more aware of the importance of institutions and historical forces in shaping our individual choices. American conservatives have perhaps studied too much economics, and reduce everything to the individual. We need better ways of integrating the structural forces of society with individual choices. This has, in fact, been one of the main issues in anthropology over the past 40 years. But there is little hope for the US politically if many people cannot see structural forces, and even misread research like Rothstein’s and think it only means individuals need to make better choices.

Anthropologists as car park attendants

Now we know what anthropologists are good at. In an NPR ATC story about movie about a parking lot in Charlottesville, VA, the lot manager says:

"The anthropologists are always the best," Farina says, laughing. "They have a perspective that allows them to look at oddness and be interested in it and not be bored."