GUEST BLOG: Damon Rusden – The psychology of Trump’s victory

Many claims have been made that Donald J. Trump won the 2016 election simply because Clinton could not engage with the “salt of the earth” worker. Others have said it is racism (I personally don’t believe that to be a huge factor) and others still have said it’s a revolt against globalisation and the PC/liberal movement. What is missing in much of the analysis is a more primordial idea – psychology.

Jonathan Haidt in his book “The righteous mind: why good people are divided by religion and politics” proposes that we, as a species, have a moral matrix which is “structured in advance of experience”. An analogy is that we have the first draft of a book already written which is substantiated by a variety of environmental factors that we experience throughout life.
Haidt’s attempt to explain this is codified in his (in collaboration with others) “Moral Foundations Theory”.

It explains six foundations (for a moral compass) that evolution has adapted to and given us, and our intuitive reactions which explains reactions, political and otherwise, as to why we act the way we do.
First of all is the “care/harm” foundation. It stems from our compassion for kin, to protect our offspring. This has extended to those who are helpless in general.

Second is the “fairness/cheating” foundation. Evolutionarily, it fostered small relationships which we needed with each other to survive and prosper through “reciprocal altruism”. We benefited from reciprocity, and we kept those around who did so to continue reaping the benefits. Vice versa for those who betrayed our trust or were selfish. Even today, we see this with judgments of people and breaches of faith, such as in a marriage. This also encompasses proportional fairness, which divides liberals and conservatives. Ie, you deserve what you have contributed or the effort put it, or everyone deserves a fair share for the broader ideal of egalitarianism.

Thirdly is the “loyalty/betrayal” foundation. This helped us form large, cohesive groups that we needed to have to avoid domination by other tribes/groups. This is seen today with our entrenched bellied in one thing or another, and much of psychology indicates we still act in “camps” over many things today, such as patriotism and sports teams.

Another is “authority/subversion”. This one is a classic – the need to have a hierarchies and to forge beneficial relationships within those. This works with bosses, colleagues, the police, elderly, etc.

Next up is “sanctity/degradation”. Biologically, we adapted this to oppose diseases, pathogens, microbes, contamination and all the rest. Our instinctive disgust of waste and disease in general shows this. Since then, it has been expanded to religious icons, and things like consecrate ground, graveyards, flags and other revered or disgusted items/places or, largely, the environment.

Lastly (and kind of tacked on as a provisional foundation) there is “liberty/oppression”. This deals with equality, and the right as an individual or business to be free from oppression. This began as a way to stop “bully tactics” or overt/unwarranted dominance within hierarchies, and expanded to taxes and regulation. Libertarians use this as the sole receptor in many cases.

The conclusion Haidt puts forward is simple: those on the “left” (liberals) only trigger three foundations, “harm”, “fairness” (unless it conflicts with “care”) and “liberty” to a lesser extent. They consider “care” exponentially more important than any other group. But they are the only foundations they trigger in voters.

The “right” (conservatives) however, trigger all of them, with a heavy reliance on fairness in proportion to what you deserve. This gives conservatives an inbuilt advantage to appeal for voters.
If you accept this, as I do (the book is very detailed and researched, with a lot of data to prove this hypothesis) then it must be used to explain the extraordinary election of Trump.

Think back on all you’ve heard from him; he swings from pro-Iraq war to anti-Iraq war. Pro and anti abortion. Pro and anti wealth cuts. “Crooked Hillary” (triggers modules on the foundation) and “Lyin’ Ted”. He consistently berates the establishment as being unjust – that globalisation was treacherous to the modern worker. That environmental regulation corroded the ability to get a job in manufacturing or coal. Trump and his team constantly depicted PC/liberal culture was a war on family values. He emphasised the immigration issue so much so that voters embraced it as a “loyalty” issue. His promise to scrap Obamacare incited the conservative aspect of “liberty” and “fairness” by scraping a system which demands that an individual picks up the health burden of others unfairly. He epitomised the psychological advantage by triggering all the right things, and, I would say unknowingly, utilsed the “social intuition” model (we vote/trust on intuition and base incaricts rather than rationale) very well. His narrative was the perfect cocktail of moral outrage which fit well with anecdotes and morality.

Psychology tells us we have huge, indomitable confirmation bias. We find rational arguments to justify our intuitive position. Is it so hard to believe, when a candidate like triggers ALL of the modules in our morality matrix, that he won? That in a polarised election the one who ticks all the morale boxes was going to lose?

Clinton, on the other hand, had an email scandal (which undermined ” loyalty”) and lame protestations about Wall Street, who she was well acquainted with. The outrage over the paid speeches controversy invoked the “cheating” module. Realistically she invoked nothing else (except one policy I know of that relied on traditional democratic ideas of “care”) and all that was heard triggered the ‘bad’ value judgement of our morale matrix.

The 2016 race was an outlier in the history of elections, but the psychology has been largely ignored. It’s a valuable lesson for all pundits and candidates of both sides to consider.”

 

Damon Rusden is a chef, journalist and law student with an avid belief in civic education and accountability.