Why Vote for Trump?

Why does anyone support Trump? He has weirdly prehensile lips, but about half the Republican party dotes on him. No doubt there are dozens of reasons why they care, including those doing it for the money, but the best explanation I have found comes from George Lakoff, a famous cognitive linguist at Berkeley. I’m going to attempt to apply his approach here.

Many but not all conservatives grow up in strict-father families in which the domination of the father is seen as part of the natural order. Nature made men more powerful than women and children. For these conservatives, having men rule is just common sense adherence to facts. What Lakoff points out is that conservative thinking emerges from a set of beliefs about reality that differs from liberal beliefs. For a strict-father conservative, people with pale skin should and do dominate people with darker skin. That’s the way Nature wants it. Building a wall along the Mexican border is, for them, plain sense and the moral thing to do. Allowing people with dark skin into our country will turn us into degenerates. 

What is immoral, to some conservatives, is electing a man with dark skin as President, because African-Americans are weak and easily tempted to do wrong. They lack moral fiber.  That turns the natural order upside down and sets a bad example for others—Americans, if let loose, have a natural inclination toward evil.  You end up with Black Lives Matter. Electing a woman—women are weak—is absurd and, yes, immoral. It blurs the natural order, which is an evil thing to do. Lock her up.

All of that is common sense to strict-father conservatives, and you will not convince them otherwise. They consider liberals both stupid and illogical. Conservatives see liberals as people who can’t see or adhere to reality. These conservative beliefs are rock-solid. 

Today another wing of the Republican party understands that Trump is mentally ill, a lecher, a con man, an absentee father, etc.  As a consequence the party seems to be splitting, at war with itself over which strict father it wants in the White House. Lakoff notes that in some cases a woman can play the strict father role (a tiger mom).