If you applaud 50% of this column but are offended by the other 50%, then you are part of the problem.
Trump’s Supporters and Detractors Are Mirror Images
The Mar-a-Lago search reveals both camps are loath to take responsibility for the choices they made.
By Katherine C. Epstein
Aug. 21, 2022 12:21 pm ET
Reactions to the Federal Bureau of Investigation search of Mar-a-Lago revealed
a symmetry between Donald Trump’s loudest supporters and his loudest detractors that both sides wish to ignore: the desire to avoid acknowledging their unpopularity and taking responsibility for their choices.
Mr. Trump’s supporters have offered a stream of theories to justify their belief that he didn’t lose the 2020 election—voting machines were tampered with, election officials were corrupt, ballot boxes were stuffed, etc.
On the other hand, Mr. Trump’s opponents have pursued a stream of legal investigations to justify their belief that he engaged in criminal conduct—the Russia investigation, the tax-fraud investigation, the Jan. 6 investigation, etc.
Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters and opponents focus on asking whether the stolen-election theories and legal investigations are empirically accurate. It’s easy to get sucked into trying to answer that question, as most commentary has done, and forget to ask other important ones. Why, for example, might Trump supporters and opponents focus on that particular inquiry—and why might they not want others to undertake additional inquiries? In the language of cultural history, what work does their preferred framing of the question do for them?
The answer seems to be that
it enables them to avoid searching their own consciences. By blaming others, they don’t have to blame themselves. By explaining events in terms of other people’s choices, they don’t have to take responsibility for their own.
For Trump supporters, the stolen-election theory enables them to avoid confronting the reality that a large majority of the country dislikes the guy they like and to avoid asking whether there might not be some empirically well-founded reasons to dislike him, such as his narcissism, petty vindictiveness and America-first parochialism. The stolen-election theory enables Trump supporters to avoid admitting they’ve backed a loser. It allows them to believe that the problem isn’t Mr. Trump’s unpopularity, for which they and Mr. Trump are largely responsible.
If Trump supporters’ problem was his unfitness for public office rather than compromised voting machines, then they’d have to consider that they might be complicit in what ails the country. They’d have to do a lot of hard work to figure out why they were so loyal to such an obnoxious person. Much easier to blame a Democratic conspiracy.
For Trump opponents, the quest for a legal silver bullet enables them to avoid confronting the reality that a large majority of the country dislikes the candidates they like and to avoid asking whether there might not be some empirically well-grounded reasons to dislike these candidates—such as their condescension, desire to spend vast sums of money without regard for the long-term implications, and lack of interest in national security. The quest for a legal silver bullet enables Trump opponents to avoid admitting that they have backed losers. It allows them to indulge the inverse fantasy of Trump’s supporters: to believe that the problem isn’t the Democrats’ unpopularity, for which they themselves are largely responsible.
If Trump opponents’ problem were political, cultural and moral rather than legal, then they would have to consider that they might be complicit in creating the conditions that made Mr. Trump’s presidency possible. They would have to do a lot of hard work persuading Americans that Democrats have better ideas than Republicans. Much easier to seek a shortcut through the courts.
In effect, where Mr. Trump’s supporters have a cult of personality, his opponents have a cult of law. They want the law to do something it can’t—solve political, cultural and moral problems—in much the same way that Mr. Trump’s supporters want him to be something he isn’t, which is a winner. What’s striking about Trump supporters isn’t that they’re angry at the left (lots of people are), but that they identify the solution so strongly with a single person. What’s striking about his opponents isn’t that they want a solution to the Trump problem (lots of people do), but that they keep searching for a legal solution.
The substance of the reactions to the FBI search among Mr. Trump’s supporters and his opponents is different, but the almost pathological intensity of their reactions is similar. Among supporters, there’s a desperate unwillingness to consider whether the search might be justified by the facts of the case or by the bedrock principle that no one is above the law. Among opponents, there’s a desperate hope that this will finally be the case that gets him and an equally desperate desire to avoid considering whether the search might compromise the bedrock principle that the law must not be politicized.
That desperation is the hallmark of Trump Derangement Syndrome—a pandemic spread by the virality-seeking media and for which Mr. Trump himself is Patient Zero.
I’m not arguing that Trump supporters are wrong to be angry at the left, or that Trump opponents are wrong to care about the law. I’m arguing that the
annoying question always asked by therapists—not “is that really true?” but
“why do you think or want that to be true?”—is a question that needs to be asked of Mr. Trump’s supporters and opponents. The answer is one they don’t want to hear.
The Mar-a-Lago search has been used to explain support and opposition to Mr. Trump in terms of evil or stupidity, which is how his supporters and opponents explain each other. Perhaps we might use it instead to ask what work using evil and stupidity as our categories of analysis does for us.
Ms. Epstein is an associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-...ty-11660919395
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