His followers seem to love his strength. But it wasn’t so long ago his act would have been seen as exactly the opposite.
The House impeachment and Senate trial of Donald Trump have offered good occasion to listen to and understand the minds of his defenders. Even people who dislike parts of his character or record invoke certain words again and again to describe the parts they do like.
In interviews and emails, these backers tell me they regard Trump as “strong.” His battles with adversaries reveal him as “tough.” What in a conventional light looks outrageous—the bragging, the insults, the defiance, the rule skirting, the shredding of familiar standards of how a president should act—in this more sympathetic light looks like charisma. It gives him the aura of “a winner.”
To put a fine point on it, his backers regard him as a real man—possessed of a virility that flows not in spite of his excesses but because of them. In these minds, Trump represents a certain ideal of male power in exaggerated form. Continue reading.