Did Trump exploit the loneliness epidemic in America?
Hear To This Story
Expensive Reader:
Usually I write a Yr Finish Message that emphasizes what we completed right here at WhoWhatWhy and our plans for the approaching 12 months. However we’re in such extraordinary terrain, I believed I might forego that and as a substitute share this rumination with you.
***
What has so profoundly alienated People from one another — and from the information — that it despatched huge numbers of even non-MAGA varieties into Donald Trump’s cynical embrace?
It’s a lingering thriller we should remedy if we’re ever going to drag this nation out from an ongoing plunge into the abyss.
In fact, possibly, many elements performed a job, together with a shared worry of The Different, and of change; a way of particular person or collective humiliation and besiegement; and an lack of ability to course of or unwillingness to hunt or contemplate correct data.
However there could also be one other rationalization, one that initially look could appear totally ridiculous: Trump’s inconceivable success is attributable to one thing extraordinarily fundamental and badly uncared for: Loneliness.
Feeling lonely, even when surrounded by others. The intertwined issues of loneliness and social alienation — and the way to exploit their intersection.
May that be Trump’s secret system?
I’ve lengthy puzzled why this problem didn’t garner broader curiosity. So I used to be gratified when in 2023 the surgeon normal took the weird step of naming loneliness a high precedence with precise well being penalties. (For extra on this, see Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon Normal’s Advisory on the Therapeutic Results of Social Connection and Neighborhood.)
I not too long ago learn a persuasive piece about how our digital world has made a long-running drawback a lot worse.
There’s an epidemic of loneliness in our nation — loneliness touches every little thing, from the media we eat and the merchandise we purchase to the relationships we (don’t) kind. After we replicate on the winners and losers in 2024, we’ll bucket them into two classes: those that capitalized on loneliness and people who didn’t. Furthermore, we’ll notice that, on this society of lonely folks, we discover much more to like in an individual than a model. …
As with podcasting, this presidential election was additionally much less about left vs. proper than it was about folks vs. manufacturers. Nobody understood this higher than Donald Trump, who doubled down on his parasocial relationship with hundreds of thousands of People whereas actively disassociating from the Republican model. It was the final word people-over-brand technique.
However how did we get from a deep-seated societal in poor health — a phenomenon that the isolation attendant to the pandemic solely intensified — to the attraction of Trump? Robert Putnam, writer of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Neighborhood, could have the reply. Right here’s how he described the affect of his guide on Steve Bannon, and his election technique:
Bannon suggested Trump that their path to victory was to search for these individuals who had been simply utterly remoted, fragmented, and didn’t have any connections — they usually had been going to present them some actual connections. … And the information present that the extra remoted you had been, the extra seemingly you had been to vote for Trump. [Emphasis added.]
‘Give Them Some Real Connections’
When you mix the sense of determined isolation with a universe of “low information” voters and add in cynical gamers prepared to use these two elements, and highly effective digital instruments, you’ve acquired the key system for Trump’s success.
When you don’t imagine me, that’s as a result of, in contrast to me, you won’t be on Trump’s mailing listing.
Trump’s direct and excessive use of the language of the desperately damaged and the lonely is each crafty and cynical.
Nearly each piece of the fixed barrage of emails is very private. He tells me he’s enthusiastic about me personally. He tells me he needs to listen to from me. He tells me he needs me at Mar-a-Lago. On the White Home. Touring the world with him. He tells me he desperately needs my recommendation. And he’s continuously urging me to get the trimmings of his world — his hats, his mugs, his sneakers, his bibles.
He was in all probability hand-picked by God, however for certain he’s my good friend and my savior. He not solely understands my wants, he understands my true price.
If I’m lonely, at the very least I’ll all the time have him.
I belief in his knowledge, his goodness, his worth regardless of some imperfections. And so I imagine that these individuals who say he’s dangerous are themselves liars and manipulators. I imagine him when he says that the world is the wrong way up, reverse of what maybe even my very own expertise or frequent sense dictates.
So I plug my ears, I smile, I scowl, and I can’t hearken to my family members and associates who beg me to return to my senses. I do know I’m proper. And he’s my good friend.
When he says aggressive issues, when he insults different folks, when these round him appear imply, when his guarantees come to naught, I do know that it’s all for good, as a result of there are dangerous folks making an attempt to cease him. And I received’t allow them to.
As a result of he’s my good friend. And I want a good friend.
***
What the Democrats discuss — seemingly summary ideas of duty, effectiveness, and decency — simply doesn’t minimize it with these folks. Dems are centered on information — important information, to make sure, which nonetheless now not play a component within the actuality of the web or of how so many individuals stay and see themselves and their world.
Strange of us are determined for “friends” — even make-believe associates bombarding them from TV screens, emails, or texts. Staff Trump has mastered this. The “always-on” Fox TV display screen has mastered this.
These folks now not care about coverage or rationality. Anybody and something that appeals to them viscerally and feels prefer it fills the gaping gap of their lives is ALL that issues.
And by shopping for into the Trump household, they not solely have the Trumps as their associates — they’ve an entire congregation to belong to. Going to Trump rallies is like going to church. It feels so good to have associates who share your fervor. The sensation is, ultimately, the entire thing.
Associated: https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/us-politics/the-binding-blinding-energy-of-a-trump-rally/
Plus, there’s the function of denial. No person needs to confess to being lonely — or that it’s a prime motivator for becoming a member of a tribe. It’s too embarrassing. And it’s too tender. Precisely the sort of factor they decry in others. Not one thing one would admit to when one is braying about proudly owning weapons, that “men are men and women are women, and stay out of my bathroom.”
To make certain, folks of every kind undergo from loneliness. However the best way some are wired, they might by no means be prone to Trump’s types of persuasion. Typically these are individuals who cherish their solitude, their moments for reflection, and for studying books that nourish their mind and their creativeness — once more making them not supreme targets for Trump.
In any case, I’m struck by how the Trump equipment didn’t let up one bit after they received the election. If something, I see extra of this effort than ever earlier than. Clearly, the method labored — and protecting this military loyal is of the very best precedence.
The opposite day I acquired an e mail from “TrumpVance 2024” that stated:
President Trump and Elon Musk simply talked about your title…
They had been chatting about you in Mar-a-lago.
Do you need to know what they stated about you?
On condition that this nonsense is clearly efficient — and certain will proceed to be — what can we do about it? Imitation is clearly not the reply. Is there something aside from letting Trump’s monstrous delusions and treachery run their course, nevertheless lengthy that will take, and ready for mass disappointment to set in? I’ve made it my mission to attempt to determine this out and to make it a giant a part of our WhoWhatWhy inquiries within the new 12 months.
I’ll have an interest to listen to your ideas.
I additionally need to want you and the world an unexpectedly better-than-we-thought-possible 2025.
View all posts
