I found myself wondering, not for the first time, what makes it possible for Trump supporters to think and feel as they do about this grotesque political anthropoid. Which led me to re-read Thomas Nagel’s famous philosophical paper "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” (1974). My training in linguistic philosophy a decade-and-a half earlier did not prepare me for this discussion, and the passage of time has not increased my ability to understand its arguments. The gist of it seems to be that there is neither an objective nor a subjective way of understanding, much less experiencing, the experience of a bat. (This conclusion means no more to philosophers than it means to others—that is, almost nothing; to them, it is the arguments establishing this conclusion which matter.)
The experiential distance between man and bat is, of course, much greater than that between man and man. Nevertheless, I have no first-hand way to explore, much less experience, the compound of thoughts and feelings which support the visceral bond of Trump supporters to this political animal. Those thoughts and feelings differ in their nature and their intensity, from the extremists of the kind who attacked Congress, many dressed and acting as if in computer action games, to the moderates who have reflexively voted Republican or have doubts about Kamala Harris (and Tim Walz).
I puzzle about these matters because, as a former consultant and teacher, my work required me to understand and communicate with those whose thoughts and feelings were quite different from my own. In today’s political environment, understanding and communicating are almost impossible or quite rare for two major reasons (I ignore the reluctance or refusal of most people to engage in political discussion "across the aisle”).
One reason is that some words used in political discourse, even when their dictionary definition is accepted, carry different emotive or moral values. For example, the word "bigot.” Some people regard the label as a badge of shame; some, with indifference; some, as a badge of honor. If so, attaching labels of moral opprobrium to, say, white supremacists can have little or no constructive effect; they cannot be shamed into abandoning their allegiances or their convictions. Other words are transmuted or transvalued; Republicans (not Democrats) are "real Americans,” insurrectionists are patriots, compromise is treachery, moderation is weakness, etc.
Another reason is the now-common quarrel about what the facts are or whether they are relevant to a political preference or policy. There are now, apparently, not only facts, but also "alternative facts,” many of which constitute stories of conspiracies. In the quotidian world of everyday living, the proliferation and acceptance of non-truths threatens not only rational discussion, but also and more importantly sensible decisions.
Trump and Vance campaign according to an anti-factual rhetorical doctrine: a lie really big no one will believe is rigged, so it will be believed. Their campaign presents a fact-free, dystopian vision of an America in decline; their falsehoods pronounced on social media, at rallies, in friendly interviews, even in a presidential debate enter the informational mainstream. For example, Trump has repeatedly bad-mouthed the American economy. A Harris poll in late May for The Guardian reports that 56% of Americans thought the country was in a recession (it was not), 49% believed the stock market was down for the year (it was way up), and, 49% said unemployment was near a 50-year high (it was near a 50-year low). Thus, 58% believe that mismanagement by the Biden administration had worsened the economy.
Most Americans’ eyes glaze over when they see macroeconomic numbers, but their ears perk up when they are told about someone’s bad news. Even so, it is hard to believe that they accept racist Big Lies about immigrants raping (white) women, murdering (white) people, and eating (white) peoples’ pets. For many of them live in or near cities and towns with immigrants; can stop, look, or listen; yet learn nothing of the sort. So the question is why they believe such stuff as fear campaigns are made of when the real world of their quotidian experience refutes it.
Whatever the answer, clearly, Trump’s true believers do not acquire the facts and accept the truth about the economy or immigrants and just about anything, everything, else. They are naïve or needy in accepting whatever Trump presents to them; insensitive or indifferent to his falsehoods, distortions, or contradictions; and incapable of critical thinking. Bad at dealing with the realities of the outer world, they are worse at dealing with the realities of their inner world. Their illusions about the outer world parallel the delusions of their inner world. They are incapable of introspection because they lack the detachment to observe, examine, and understand their thoughts and feelings. Without self-awareness, they are also without mental or emotional self-control; ignorance and impulse prevail. Morality and ethics are transactional; they have no conscience. Their propensity for bigotry, cruelty, and violence reflects their anger and resentment at their frustrations in education, in employment, or of aspirations to popularity, power, or prestige. (A notable electoral cohort is socially inept and sexually frustrated young males known as incels, for involuntary celibate; for them, it is no longer a man’s world, so misogyny prevails.)
Of such people, the true believers in Trump, many might want to say that they are bat-shit crazy or their complicity in that man’s imponderable evil is itself imponderable. I prefer a story, probably apocryphal, instead. On a day in Auschwitz, one Jew came upon another deep in prayer. The one asked the other what he was doing; the other answered that he was praying. The one asked why he was praying; the other answered that he was offering thanks to God. The one asked what he was thankful for; the other answered that he was thankful that God had not made him like them.
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