The Antisocial Threat to Democracy

In an earlier blog post analyzing the social bases of Trumpism, and in particular the anti-democratic impulses animating the movement, I looked at results from the 2017 World Values Survey to draw comparisons between two groups.

Authoritarians are those whose main political priority is order; they favor social conformity, adherence to tradition, and strong leaders who focus on safety and security. While earlier research has emphasized their centrality to Trumpism, the World Values Survey reveals they are not actually the group most likely to support actions against democracy such as political violence, the possible imposition of army rule, or strongman leadership.

Instead, a different social constituency – people displaying antisocial attitudes through their disregard for various core social and legal norms – are more ardent proponents of these various deviations from democracy.

Recognizing these two distinct social strains is important to understanding many facets of Trumpism. The involvement of the authoritarian-minded was never much in doubt, especially once Trump secured the Republican nomination back in 2016. One of the principal conclusions of the relevant academic research is that an authoritarian bloc has emerged as a core component of Republican support over the past few decades, producing an important realignment of American party politics and a deep social fissure between Democrats and Republicans. This was the pre-existing foundation on which Trumpism was built.

How and why an antisocial constituency was added to the mix is more complicated. The larger question hovering in the background is where they came from in the first place: why, that is, have a substantial number of Americans come to feel released or excluded from their nation’s social contract and adopted a cavalier attitude towards the democratic system and much else?

Much of the broader analysis of Trumpism is implicitly dealing with this question, with answers ranging from economic marginalization to cultural anxiety to racial animus to more than one of the above. That important debate continues, not yet fully resolved.

On the more immediate question of political mobilization, the incorporation of antisocial forces into the Trumpian fold was by no means guaranteed. Their responses on the World Values Survey reveal that their interest in politics is below average and that they typically vote at only half the rate of other Americans (not all that surprising really, since voting itself is often thought of as a type of pro-social act).

Trump’s great success was in rallying this normally disengaged segment of the population to his cause. Several factors were likely at play.

One was his own larger-than-life transgressive persona. His disregard for the norms of civil human interaction, the aggression, lying and pervasive egocentrism, are the epitome of antisocial behavior. If at least some Republicans struggled with the idea of supporting a leader of his ilk, those of an antisocial bent were happy to vote for one of their own.

Trump also used a mix of emotional appeals and manipulations to reel in different groups. Researchers have long known that authoritarians are highly sensitive to threats of many kinds, giving strongman leaders opportunities to exaggerate dangers in order to elicit fear in their followers – an emotional response apt to produce passivity and acquiescence.

Antisocial individuals, on the other hand, are more impulsive and belligerent and therefore more readily triggered by anger – an energizing and mobilizing sentiment.

While Trump stirred both emotions in his supporters, it often seemed that hostility and rage were the dominant themes. Certainly, this was the sentiment that pervaded the culminating events of his Presidency following the November election loss, fueling actions by leader and followers alike that went beyond the democratic pale.

One final piece of the puzzle was Trump’s ability to take advantage of the susceptibility of some Americans to dubious ideas and misinformation. A recent research paper suggests that antisocial traits are relevant once again, finding a strong correlation (0.41) between these and the propensity to look favorably on the QAnon movement. The study notes that “the type of extremity that undergirds such support has less to do with traditional, left/right political concerns and more to do with extreme, anti-social psychological orientations and behavioral patterns.”

This finding might be taken as another important example of norm rejection: just as antisocial individuals exhibit disdain for various social norms through their attitudes and actions, they also care little for a key epistemic norm vital to democracy – the truth. Without this anchoring principle to tether them to reality, they are more susceptible to the falsehoods and fabrications that help fuel today’s political extremism.

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None of this is to reject arguments about Trump and his order-obsessed, authoritarian supporters. It’s true they were more likely to vote for Trump, to favor his strongman politics and to register support for his illiberal policies. But it does underline the important point that Trump’s followers represent a complex social coalition.

Figuring out ways to address the ongoing challenge to American democracy requires a sound understanding of the social and psychological underpinnings of these diverse blocs of supporters.