Trump super fans are impossible to argue with because they don’t actually believe in logic
The far-right worldview is incomprehensible until you realize that devotees believe truth flows from authority rather than reality
This essay is the first in a series called “How This Happened,” examining larger trends in American political history and how they manifest in today’s politics. Please subscribe to receive future installments.
Ever since Donald Trump emerged on the American political scene, many of his critics have sought tirelessly to raise many different arguments about his policies, rhetoric, and criminal actions to help his supporters see just what their unrequited loyalty is enabling. Occasionally, these efforts have yielded fruit, but overwhelmingly, they are unsuccessful.
Last September, the head of an anti-Trump Republican political action committee called Win It Back, formalized the despair of many critics in a memorandum summarizing what his group had learned after testing more than 40 different television ads on 12 in-person focus groups.
“All attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective,” David McIntosh wrote.
“Every traditional postproduction ad attacking President Trump either backfired or produced no impact on his ballot support and favorability,” McIntosh continued. “This includes ads that primarily feature video of him saying liberal or stupid comments from his own mouth.”
Whether acting in a personal or professional capacity, many Trump critics have seen similar results. Trying to use logical persuasion with your Trump-worshiping friend or relative is not likely to work, not necessarily because they are stupid, but because they have completely different moral and epistemic viewpoints than you or almost anyone else—they genuinely believe that facts do not derive from science, reason, or history.
Lately, this moral viewpoint has been called “fascist,” which according to scholars of fascism, makes a lot of sense. But fascism is actually part of a much older tradition that goes back to the very beginning of recorded history. That tradition, authoritarianism, is so deeply embedded in most cultures that it is almost never even recognized as a moral philosophy. It is simply “common sense” as far as adherents are concerned.
In popular usage, the word authoritarian generally seems to be a synonym for jerk, but this should not keep us from understanding that authoritarianism is an actual worldview, one in which identities and individuals matter more than moral principles, and that the rightfulness of actions derives from the status of the person committing them rather than their adherence to specific objective moral standards.
Outsiders see hypocrisy when they hear Trump supporters claiming in 2024 to hate “political prosecutions” even though their hero ran for office in 2016 promising to “lock up” his main opponent for an all-too-common legal infraction, but seen through the lens of moral authoritarianism, there is no inconsistency whatsoever. Morality flows downward from authority. People in a higher status are not only more truthful, they are also more moral.
Trump himself seems to have been shocked when he first encountered authoritarian morality, he expressed this surprise in his infamous remark that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
Unlike so many of his boasts, this one was no exaggeration. The act of shooting someone would be immoral based on Christian teaching, but because Trump had been established as the tribal leader by that point, this action would either be of no moral consequence or could even be seen as positive.
The roots of authoritarian morality extend deep into human history. Many ancient civilizations operated under theocratic or monarchic systems where rulers were seen as divinely appointed or even incarnations of deity. These systems established a precedent where the ruler’s will was equated with moral rightness, a moral order centered around authority and obedience.
As humanity progressed scientifically and cognitively, the principles of authoritarianism remained attractive for many people. Its ideas provide simple and clear directives for social and political order: Loyalty and submission to the leader are paramount, and the leader’s actions are inherently justified by virtue of his/her position.
Submitting to authority figures had particular appeal to many early and medieval Christian fundamentalists who devised the moral argument known today as “divine command theory,” the idea that all morality is determined by God alone; anything God says is right.
Other moral viewpoints can exist, but if they are found to be in conflict with divine will, then they are by definition immoral or incorrect, even if science, history or other scholarship may support them.
Although plenty of Jews and Christians do not believe in divine command theory and there are several stories told in the Bible which contradict it, there are a number of narratives throughout Hebrew and Christian scripture which support the idea. The most prominent example is the legend of Abraham being willing to kill his son Isaac after being commanded to do so by God.
At the end of the story, God intervenes and stops Abraham from committing murder, but this is pure happenstance and there is no moral instruction provided to him by God that killing Isaac would have been wrong:
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” [Genesis 22, NIV translation]
Later on in the Bible, it becomes clear that if Abraham had killed Isaac, he would have been righteous to do so.
The tale of Jephthah is much less famous than the sacrifice of Isaac story, and there is good reason to see why. As related by the narrator of Judges 11, Jephthah was an Israelite warrior chieftain who covenants with God that if he is given victory in an upcoming battle, he will kill the first being he sees upon his return home. It was his daughter, and he kept his promise, burning her to please the Lord:
Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. […]
When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.”
“My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”
“You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin. [Judges 11, NIV translation]