Many commenters have long observed that Trump projects onto others his own attitudes, beliefs, and conduct in an effort to distract from his own and to discredit others. One notable instance is his repeated accusation that Democrats hate America. In a normal world, so improbable an accusation would be immediately dismissed as nonsense. In this world, it makes sense to Trump’s dedicated MAGA followers as more than a conventional effort to smear his opponents. But Trump’s projection of twisted logic and perverse content makes the accusation persuasive to his followers.
Consider the America which Trump claims that Democrats hate and are destroying or trying to destroy. According to 2024 U.S. census data, the population was 340 million people. By race, whites 58.4%, Hispanic/Latino 19.5%, black 13.7%, Asian 6.4%, other 2.0%. By sex, female 50.5%, male 49.5%. By religion, Protestant 40%, unaffiliated 29%, Catholic 19%, Other 7%, Christian other 4%, non-responders 1%. “We the People” are a mixed bag and will, per most projections, be a minority-majority population by 2040, when whites will be less than 50%. These demographic statistics prove that the population is heterogeneous, not homogeneous.
Trump, his administration, Republicans, and MAGA supporters favor homogeneity or, at least, a white, male, Christian hegemony for America. They have their work cut out for them, and they are working at it. Both in speech and in action, they have embraced racist, sexist, and so-called Christian policies, and building up or tearing down programs, depending. They seek to deport millions of Hispanics or Latinos; they are reducing the franchise and hindering voting access—actions which most affect women, minorities, seniors, and students; they are increasing public financial support to parochial Christian schools; they are attacking LGBTQ+ people.
By contrast, Democrats are an amalgamation of demographic groups; heterogeneity is the result, one much to their liking. Although individual Democrats might be racist or sexist, the party itself is not. Notably, Democrats tend to predominate in urban, especially metropolitan, areas, with their mixtures of demographic groups. These areas attract, accept, and accommodate immigrants and support an expanded franchise and voter access.
Trump’s repeated charge that Democrats hate America is the highest profile instance of his projection. From his perspective, Democrats, who like America with its demographic diversity, like what Trump and Republicans hate and fear. They hate this diversity because they view it as corrupting or destroying an America in which white, male, Christians once fully enjoyed, now only partly enjoy, hegemony. They fear this diversity because they view it as eroding what remains of this hegemony and replacing it with a multiethnic, multicultural society. Trump, who pledged to be their “retribution,” links together and thus attacks Democrats, DEI, woke, and cosmopolitan lifestyles of education, arts, and sciences (e.g., NPR, NEA, NEH, NSF), and reflexively rejects truth, reason, and law. As he hates this diversity which he associates with Democrats, so he projects that their embrace of what he hates implies that they hate America.
A modest digression. Democrats are surprised that the liberal largess which constitutes their social programs—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.—has not secured them all the votes which they think such programs should. The implicit materialism underlying their surprise resists the empirical evidence that value-laden matters of culture, identity, and religion—the culture war issues—are important, even more important, to many people. Which goes a long way to explain why Republicans still support Trump despite many Republican policy failures. His Big Beautiful Bill might test the limits of their allegiance. Still, unless and until Democrats realize that many voters vote their interests, not what Democrats think should be their interests, they will not understand and appeal to the people whose votes they need to win elections.
Unfortunately, this analysis does not lead to a bumper sticker or other short-form rebuttal, but it has some value. First, it serves as an alternative to defensive, ineffective protestations that Democrats do not hate their country but love it, its flag, etc., by exposing the underlying motives of the Republican accusation. Second, it gives Democrats a rebuttal to the insidious suggestion that, because of this accusation, they are traitors, not “real” Americans, and do not deserve the rights to which they are otherwise presumed to be entitled under the Constitution.
All very well and good, but, in present and likely future circumstances, rationality of this kind is not going to have much effect. As long as Trump repeats the absurdity that Democrats hate America, it might remain an accepted cliché of political discourse. If so, it will remain a danger to democracy. We are already seeing it as part of Trump’s rhetoric indicating his intent to send various repressive forces to major metropolitan areas—not only Los Angeles, but also New York and Chicago. I am afraid that America is entering a period in which life, or at least political life, will become, in Thomas Hobbes’s words, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
As I have suggested in previous blogs, if there is a civil war, it will be less likely to pit armies against armies than to pit gangs against gangs and neighbors against neighbors. Republicans will win that war; they have the non-governmental paramilitary groups and the preponderance of weapons, especially large-magazine, rapid-fire weapons. Democrats will lose that war but lick their wounds by consoling themselves that they were right.
Between now and then are the scheduled 2026 elections. I have strong doubts that they will be free and fair, and not rigged to ensure Republican wins; or, if Democratic wins seem likely, that they will occur at all. The critical factor determining between rigged and canceled elections is the prospects of party control of Congress, especially the House of Representatives. Currently, Republicans are making efforts across the country to control election results by gerrymandering, disenfranchising voters, intimidating voters, hindering access to voting which differentially affects some groups of the population more than others, and perverting the counting of ballots either in the states or in Congress. If these efforts look unlikely to succeed, the Republican fallback position will be to prompt protests or disorders which Trump can call insurrections, rebellions, or whatever as justification for intervening in elections with military forces or for delaying or canceling elections. Republicans agonize that Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill will anger not only Democrats and Independents, but also many Republicans, even MAGA Republicans; and jeopardize their re-election chances. So they have to hope, even trust, that one or the other of these alternatives will save their seats.
Anything is possible when Trump can distract from his hatred of America and project it onto Democrats. The accusation discredits Democrats, their party, and their representatives; delegitimizes their policies and legislation, and endangers the rights and the lives of Democrats. They must combat this canard or be complicit in their defeat and the demise of democracy.
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