What Are Trump Supporters So Afraid Of?

Numerous studies have shown that racial fears and a fears of lost white privilege were a prime motivation for many whites who voted for Donald Trump in 2016.   Trump's misogynistic administration continued to appeal to such voters by normalizing racial hatred and even calling neo-Nazis who invaded and terrorized Charlottesville, Virginia, "very fine people."  Now, with the January 6th Select Committee presenting more and more damning evidence of Trump's culpability in the January 6th coup attempt - which we now know was much more elaborate than just the assault on the U.S. Capitol - Trump cultist continue to cling to their allegiance to a man who cares for absolutely no one but himself.   It makes it difficult to not ask one's self "what is wrong with these people" as more and more damning relevations come out and it has become obvious that Trump scammed his supporters to the tune of $250 million for his non-existent election defense fund.   A piece in The Atlantic posits that much of the rage and hatred the cultist display arises from their fear of admitting they were wrong and played - and continue to be played - for fools.  How one breaks through this kind of close mindedness and embrace of a false reality is uncertain.  Here are article excerpts:

As more truths about Donald Trump and his attempted coup come out, I fear there will be more irrational anger and threats from people who cannot bear the truth.

As the January 6 hearings restarted today after the long weekend, I was thinking about the weird, psychotic fear that has overtaken millions of Americans. I include in those millions people who are near and dear to me, friends I have known for years who now seem to speak a different language, a kind of Fox-infused, Gish Galloping, “what-about” patois that makes no sense even if you slow it down or add punctuation.

Such conversations are just part of life in divided America now. We live in a democracy, and there’s no law (nor should there be) against the willing suffocation of one’s own brain cells with television and the internet. But living in an alternate reality is unhealthy—and dangerous, as I realized yet again while watching the January 6 committee hearings and listening to the stories of Republicans, such as Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers and others, describing the threats and harassment they have received for doing their duty to the Constitution.

And the threats don’t stop with political figures; families are now in the crosshairs. Representative Adam Kinzinger, for example, tweeted Monday about a letter he received in which the writer threatened not only to kill him, but to kill his wife and infant son.

The more I think about it—and I spent years researching such problems while writing a book about democracy—the more I think that such people are less angry than they are terrified.

Many of you will respond: Of course they’re terrified. They’re scared of demographic change, of cultural shifts, of being looked down upon for being older and uneducated in an increasingly young and educated world.

All true. But I think there’s more to it.

I think the Trump superfans are terrified of being wrong. I suspect they know that for many years they’ve made a terrible mistake—that Trump and his coterie took them to the cleaners and the cognitive dissonance is now rising to ear-splitting, chest-constricting levels. And so they will literally threaten to kill people like Kinzinger (among others) if that’s what it takes to silence the last feeble voice of reason inside themselves.

We know from studies (and from experience as human beings) that being wrong makes us feel uncomfortable. It’s an actual physiological sensation, and when compounded by humiliation, it becomes intolerable. The ego cries out for either silence or assent. In the modern media environment, this fear expresses itself as a demand for the comfort of massive doses of self-justifying rage delivered through the Fox or Newsmax or OAN electronic EpiPen that stills the allergic reaction to truth and reason.

These outlets are eager to oblige. It’s not you, the hosts assure the viewers. It’s them. You made the right decisions years ago and no matter how much it now seems that you were fooled and conned, you are on the side of right and justice.

This therapy works for as long as the patient is glued to the television or computer screen. The moment someone like Bowers or Kinzinger or Liz Cheney appears and attacks the lie, the anxiety and embarrassment rise like reflux in the throat, and it must be stopped, even if it means threatening to kill the messenger.

No one who truly believes they are right threatens to hurt anyone for expressing a contrary view. The snarling threat of violence never comes from people who calmly believe they are in the right. It is always the instant resort of the bully who feels the hot flush of shame rising in the cheeks and the cold rock of fear dropping in the pit of the stomach.

What this means, I regret to say, is that there will be more threats, and more violence, because there will be more truth. It’s going to be a long summer.