Why Do So Many Americans Support Trump?
His Popularity is in Part Due to Hollywood's Portrayal of Heroes and Anti-Heroes
I have not written an article about former President Donald Trump for two reasons. First, most of the discussions about Trump are about the man’s character and not his policies or accomplishments. I like to write about policy and political philosophy. Second, in a few years Trump will be gone so reading that article in the future will probably not be meaningful. I like to think that much of what I write has relevance regardless of which people and party are in power.
However, I have decided to write an article about Trump, but the article is not just about Trump. The article addresses the subject of his popularity. Read any major newspaper, listen to major news outlets, and read social media posts, and you will hear the frustration from the non-Trumpers. It is not just that they do not want Trump to be the Republican candidate for President. They are confused, perplexed, dumbfounded, puzzled, and outraged that anyone in our country would support this man. Their claims about him are that he lacks character, is mentally unstable, lies, cheats, hates women and Blacks, wants to be a dictator, is vulgar, is prone to violence and is a crook. Any Trump hater could add to the list.
So why then would anyone support Trump? Republicans have alternatives. The Republican party includes a host of credible, competent, and accomplished potential candidates. Why not one of them?
The answer is Hollywood. Yes, Hollywood is responsible for the Trump phenomena. Let me explain.
First, let us talk about the American character. What differentiates Americans from other people around the globe? Individualism is a strong character trait in American culture. An article on the website fee.org describes American individualism this way: “We value independence, creativity, and self-expression, for example. We admire those who stand out from the crowd for their unique personalities and distinctive talents. We reward high achievers and celebrate heroes.”
The article includes this statement: “Individualism is a philosophy that views people first and foremost as unique individuals rather than as members of a group. It emphasizes the importance of independence, individuality, and autonomy.”
This American individualism is well documented in the research of Geert Hofstede into cross cultural psychology. In that research he identified several factors upon which cultural values could be analyzed. One of those is collectivism vs individualism. Just as an example, in Hofstede’s work Americans scores ninety-one on the individualism scale, as opposed to Russia that scores thirty-nine and China that scores twenty. On this scale the higher the number the greater degree of individualism in that country’s culture.
There is no question individualism is part of American culture.
Second, let us talk about American literature. A concept that has become popular in literature in the last one hundred years is the antihero. Wikipedia describes the antihero this way: “An antihero or antiheroine is a main character in a story who may lack some conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality.”
The antihero is a literary term that can be understood as standing in opposition to the traditional hero who is typically well-liked, has some social status, and often has a very moral and ethical character. The antihero is often a person with significant flaws who could be considered a villain from one perspective, but a hero from another perspective. One of the most enduring antiheros of American literature is Willy Loman in Death of Salesman.
So why Hollywood? Why is Hollywood to blame?
American individualism and the antihero form the basis of much of the product of the Hollywood entertainment system. There are many lists of the best films ever made. If you review those lists, you will find the following films are often on many of those lists: Rocky, High Noon, Ben Hur, 12 Angry Men, Citizen Cane, The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life, To Kill a Mockingbird, North by Northwest, and Alien. There are many more you could add to the list but the plot of all these movies is an individual who is challenged by overwhelming odds where the likelihood of winning is slim, but in the end that individual trumps against those odds. The main character in each of these movies is a hero who through personal commitment, belief, grit, charm, tenacity, ingenuity, and maybe a little luck defeats the odds.
In American movies, the United States did not win the west. It was won by John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, and Clint Eastwood. The United States did not win World War II. It was won by Tom Hanks, Steve McQueen, John Wayne (again), Lee Marvin, Audie Murphy, and William Holden. In the case of Audie Murphy, he was not only a movie hero but a real-life hero who charged up a hill, alone and under enemy fire, and knocked out two German machine gun emplacements.
From an American perspective, a group is not enough. We need individual heroes and without those heroes, good would not have triumphed over evil. And that individualism in the form of a hero is one of the major plots of many of the great movies (and television shows) that Hollywood has ever produced.
In addition to reinforcing American individualism through the hero, Hollywood has also featured the antihero as the main character in many of the greatest Hollywood movies. In the movies I mentioned about, such as High Noon and Ben Hur, the hero was a good person. A person of ethical and moral integrity. But in many of Hollywood’s greatest movies the hero is an antihero. If we go back to that list of great Hollywood movies, we can find the Godfather, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and Double Indemnity. In these movies the hero is an antihero. These antiheroes include dysfunctional personalities, criminals, Mafia members, killers, raconteurs, scoundrels, and other unsavory characteristics.
In many of these films the audience is rooting for someone we all know is a bad guy. The John Wick films, in which the plot revolves around a career hitman who goes on a killing spree of other criminal types, has grossed more than one billion dollars. Today every show on Netflix, Prime, and HBO features a main character who suffers from alcoholism, drug abuse, a failed marriage, estranged children, history of bad behavior, childhood trauma, criminal background, or mental conditions and some of the characters suffer from more than one of these maladies.
How does this relate to Trump? There are people who support Trump because they like his policies, they will support any Republican and/or they thought he did a good job when in office. However, I suggest that many people in America support Trump because they see him as the individual fighting against the odds given that the establishment, the main-stream media, the government, the elites, academia, and the justice system are all against him. Further, they see him as the antihero. Yes, he has a checkered past and a bit of a dysfunctional personality, but just like John Wick, he is fighting against a greater perceived evil.
For some seventy years Hollywood has enforced the idea that we should root for individuals against the system, the bad guys, or some other nefarious opponent, and we should root for the antihero despite that antihero’s checkered past and dysfunctional behavior. These beliefs have been and are part of American culture. That is one reason so many Americans support Trump.
You would figure that those who as previously mentioned are confused, perplexed, dumbfounded, puzzled, and outraged that anyone in our country would support this man would have figured this out. After all, the characters (by that I mean people in the entertainment industry) in Hollywood who are so against Trump are part of the cabal that is confused, perplexed, dumbfounded, puzzled, and outraged that anyone in our country would support this man.
Thanks Hollywood.
Well, I'd have to say that's a stretch. While I make no excuses for my anti-Trump position, to say that 40+% of Repuplican voters like Trump because they see him as an antihero is to ignore the glring fact that Hollywood's antiheroes all had some redeeming qualities. This guy doesn't.