The central argument against former President Donald Trump is that his populist appeal endangers the very foundation of our republic. In making this attack, Democrats have created a pendulum for democracy or dictatorship, framing Trump’s voters as the underbelly of insurrection. The relentless vilification of his supporters may pose as grave a threat to our social fabric as a second Trump term would.
The overwhelming fear perpetuated by the media surrounding the upcoming election—that it is do or die, democracy or dictatorship—limits voters to a single acceptable option: the Democratic nominee. This disinterest in policy and focus on personality may cost Democrats the election. By branding Trump as America’s Hitler, Democrats implicitly malign Republicans voting for Trump as facilitators of fascism, widening the chasm in a deeply fractured nation.
It is true that Trump has said and done bigoted things. His rhetoric often invites hate into the heart of the GOP, stoking an ongoing fire of division in American society. Through stereotyping and dog-whistling, Trump has welcomed and appeased groups like The Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by.’ He has even gone so far as to defend white supremacists. Trump referred to the white supremacists who incited violence at the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the White Rally as ‘very fine people’ caught in a conflict he described as a “many sides” issue—a disturbing description.
Trump’s controversial remarks often fall deaf on the ears of conservatives who believe the media to be hypocritical and biased toward Democrats. Many Republicans cannot help but notice that many of the same figures and on-air personalities who once tolerated or embraced Trump’s unvarnished persona began to criticize his character only after he ran as a Republican in the 2016 Presidential Election.
Take the established liberal ladies of The View, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, who both mingled with and cozied up to Donald Trump before he ran for President as a Republican. In 2003, while introducing him to The View’s panel, Behar called him an “upstanding American,” smiling while touching his hair. During a 2011 appearance on The View, where Trump falsely claimed President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, Goldberg pushed back against Trump’s rhetoric, but made sure to conclude the show on friendly terms with him, linking hands with Trump and saying, “we are friends.” The late great Barbara Walters affirmed this claim of friendship, concluding the feisty 2011 segment by saying, “You [Donald] are a great friend of ours.”
It seems that the media only expressed qualms with Trump’s behavior after he announced his candidacy.
Today, Goldberg boycotts Trump’s name, referring to him as “you know who.” She also admonishes supporters of Trump like Dr. Ben Carson. In a 2016 appearance on The View, Carson was lambasted by Goldberg, who said support like Carson’s is “how Hitler got in.” Behar, for her own part, says Trump’s supporters “have issues,” and that supporters wearing the red hat may as well “put a swastika on it.” This is the same Behar who attended Trump’s weddings and considered herself “pals” with the billionaire real estate developer just a year before he announced his presidential run.
Behar and Goldberg are just two examples of the many media personalities who were once indifferent to Trump’s controversies but were suddenly enraged by his public character after he ran as a Republican. For decades, elitist circles tolerated much of Trump’s behavior that is currently condemned, including his role in the racially charged 1989 Central Park Five case, the Nixon DOJ’s lawsuit against his company for refusing to rent to Black tenants, and various allegations of discriminatory business practices throughout the ’90s and ’00s.
Trump’s base watched a ‘Celebrity Trump’ who was beloved and befriended by the likes of Behar and Goldberg for years. But once he rode down the escalator as a Republican, with a call to represent ‘forgotten about’ Americans, his unsavory past behavior was called into question, and he was then smeared as a racist and a bigot.
The Donald Trump that Hillary Clinton now condemns as “allied with white supremacists and neonazis, with unrepentant racists, and misogynists,” is the same Donald Trump she smiled up at, arm in arm, during his wedding to Former First Lady Melania Trump in 2005.
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The Trump base in 2024 is largely torn between Trump’s ego and his America First agenda, which includes policies they strongly resonate with. Issues related to the economy, crime, and national security—such as lowering taxes and rolling back regulation, harsher sentencing for violent crime, a stronger border, and less reliance on foreign energy—drive his base to vote and to back MAGA.
As Michael Gold of the New York Times recently reported, what “resonates more with his audiences” is the bread and butter issues of traditional politics—issues that affect everyday Americans—not the prospect of a Trump dictatorship.
The mainstream media often stretches the truth and fixates on doomsday-ish depictions of Trump as the first American dictator, backed by a depraved base. The popularized Trumpocalyptic world is eye-grabbing and sensational, but the news stories about it aren’t usually newsworthy. Headlines like CNN’s “‘Revenge’ & ‘Dictatorship’” or The Forward’s “1932 was a pivotal year in the Nazis’ ascent, a terrifying parallel for today”—published two days after an attempt on Trump’s life and just a day after he thanked President Biden for his call to unity—fail to spark meaningful dialogue in a nation where political tensions are dangerously close to boiling over. Detached from reality, this kind of rhetoric displays the glaring disconnect between the mainstream media and the issues that concern many Republican voters.
When Trump’s voters hear him speak, they hear the good, groan at the bad, and they move on. I hear this all the time: “Well I wish he’d just stop ranting,” “if he could just stop tweeting,” “…but his policies.” Trump’s supporters learn to look past the name-calling and ramblings, finding refuge in Trump’s America First policies that will advance opportunities for a working class American Dream. For over eight years, Trump’s base has faced relentless attack and vilification, as Democrats and the mainstream media unfairly and zealously attribute Trump’s flaws to his supporters.
Proponents of the mantra ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) do not seek the restoration of Jim Crow, as pundits have insisted for a decade now, and Trump voters are not Klansmen seeking the revival of a racial contract. Trump voters are Americans; rich and poor, Black and white, gay and straight, evangelical and atheist, and all in between who see a fragment in the MAGA movement they connect with and relate to. The media seldom recognizes that Trump’s supporters are, more often than not, down-to-earth, empathetic, and intelligent contributors to society who span many walks of life. They are not monolithic in their views of Trump or the world. The blanket characterization of Trump’s supporters as a cadre of bigoted stormtroopers is dead wrong. And it’s tired.
When Democrats assert that Trump’s entire agenda risks awakening a sleeping giant of racism in America, they overlook the reasons many Republicans continue to support him despite incidences of fear-mongering and bigotry. A large portion of Trump’s base is people struggling to put food on their tables and find stable employment in a changing economy. A base that sees prices up 20% under the Biden-Harris administration and the highest inflation rate in 40 years is a base willing to accept another four years of Trump. Because, in the Trump era, gas prices were down 21%, groceries were three-fourths of what they cost now, and 401(k)s were up nearly 50%. Additionally, despite the provocation of world leaders, there were no wars under the Trump administration. While Republicans may find his guttered mouth annoying, they look to Trump’s deliverables.
In an era of a dying middle class, a period in which small business is flooded in red tape and in which soaring inflation makes the poor poorer and the rich richer, MAGA symbolizes a cry for stability. Democratic hypocrisy, seen in ambitious climate policies that change the working lives of millions while elites peruse the world in their private jets, spits in the face of the worker trying to survive in a modernizing economy.
Pressuring voters to set aside policy differences in light of a perceived threat to democracy obscures the ongoing struggles faced every day by countless Americans. Telling voters to prioritize character over policy is tone-deaf and assumes they share the same privilege as political pundits who can afford to ride out the storm of rising inflation.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes dedicated an hour to the imminent demise of American democracy, drawing an overblown connection to Trump and Project 2025, which Trump has repeatedly denounced. Meanwhile, a family of four is hurting: they are paying an additional $1,261 per month to survive under the Biden-Harris administration. The Democratic Party’s lofty theories and ambitions remain out of touch with the realities of Americans struggling to make ends meet.
Describing Trump’s supporters as fascist sheep is cheap. They, most of whom reside in middle America—in suburbs and rural communities—are ostracized by Democrats, who grandstand from a mountaintop of cultural elitism. So, when Trump’s supporters seek to “drain the swamp” and gut “the Deep State,” it is not an elaborate conspiracy to give Trump dictatorial authority or eliminate a professional civil service. The deep state, as they understand it, reflects the exclusive, closed-door room in which Hillary Clinton made her ‘basket of deplorables’ comment—a glitzy high-end donor event in New York attended by members of an elite class who mock regular Americans for their supposed ineptitude, foolishness, and bigotry. The deep state, to Trump’s supporters, is a room to democracy they do not have access to, where kingpins make unilateral decisions away from transparency and accountability.
To assume Trump’s supporters are reckless and malevolent is lazy. It is also dangerous. This mindset mires the Democratic Party in a culture of elitism, which will cost them until they wake up from their self-aggrandizing slumber. Trump’s supporters are collateral for the Clintons and establishment politicians, those who resent Trump for his ability to resonate with everyday Americans.
The “forgotten men and women of our country,” as Trump calls his base, are largely an obscure crowd—at least in the eyes of those who call the Hamptons their summer home, or for pundits who insist that voters place “character” over issues like the cost of living. Outside of elite and academic circles, Trump’s voters are family, friends, neighbors, oh, and half the country.
For every decry of Trumpist existentialism, another working-class American squirms in their living room, numb to the empty rhetoric and eager for lower gas and grocery prices. Rather than hearing that Trump’s existence poses a grave threat to freedom and “everything America stands for,” regular Americans (not the contemporary X philosopher) crave tangible results over hyperbole. The great disillusionment plaguing the Democratic Party sums half of the country as freedom-fighters and labels the other half as insurrectionists.
Though I hold serious concerns regarding Trump, I understand why millions do not share my concerns. In a digital era programmed to divide, where we all live in our own siloed echo chambers shaped by targeted algorithms, we universally approach politics at an uphill climb.
We take shortcuts that drive us down rabbit holes, and because no one is immune to misinformation, we should be graceful to those we disagree with.
I trust the conclusions drawn up about politics, on Trump or Harris, will be drawn by people who care about the future of our country—because we all hold an equal stake in that future.
I trust Trump’s supporters when they exercise their First Amendment rights, because those are the people who raised me in my small hometown of Willows, California; people who feed, support, educate, and tend to their communities; kind, thoughtful, innovative, and forgiving Americans, who uplift their towns in the face of despair and come together in shared celebration.
I’m empowered by the people back home, who see my position as a small-town boy at Yale as an opportunity to bring awareness to the humanity of rural America, people who feel forgotten by Washington. Their support of Trump is as much a rejection of establishment politicians who alienate them as it is an endorsement of him.
Disdain and apathy for Trump’s supporters rejuvenated the Make America Great Again movement and is paving the way for the populist ticket in 2024. The Trump appeal has spread to growing numbers of Latinos, African Americans, and even young people, who soured from a comatose Biden-Harris administration.
The rebirth comes in light of Democratic messaging that draws on theory, rather than reality.
The American people are lost in theatrical talk about Trump. To begin healing our nation’s divide—a divide perpetuated by both sides to which Trump himself certainly contributes—Democrats must win with outcomes, not fan the flame of disorder by portraying Trump’s supporters as modern-day confederates or American Nazis.
With a new nominee, Democrats have an opportunity to unify an exhausted and polarized nation. For the sake of their election prospects and for the health of our tethered republic, Democrats must make a case to Trump’s supporters, not alienate them.