Depending on who you ask, the opinions on the former president will diverge dramatically. Many on the left speak about him in the same vane that they do Adolf Hitler. They fear that his reascension would represent America’s and democracy’s downfall. If the words of Project 2025 are to be believed, those fears may be founded.
But on the other side of the aisle, the beliefs about him border on downright religious. The notions of who and what Trump represents are almost as lofty as scripture. People believe that he’s a pedophile hunter so prolific that he could put even Chris Hansen to shame.
Some believe he’s ruled the country throughout Biden’s tenure in office, and that Biden has served only as a figurehead while Trump controls the country and military behind the scenes. Some believe that the felon and adjudicated rapist won the last election and that his return to the office of president will mean only that their stolen country has been taken back.
Some have more dubious beliefs about the aspiring despot still. Churches tell sermons about him, highlighting the way he will restore the nation to its glory days. They speak of him as a martyr hung on a cross of persecution, bearing the blows of assassination attempts, scarlet letters, and “witch hunts.”
Some think he’s simply the man he seems to be, and that his presidency is no more than an essential and unfortunate instrument in achieving their agenda. Others believe that the man he outwardly presents as is only a charade to keep the liberal media on their toes while a meticulous strategist beneath his disgruntled surface quietly controls the country.
In most cases, the MAGA wing of the party’s beliefs about Trump are verifiably untrue. It’s no coincidence that a majority of his supporters identify as Christians, after all. There’s a similarity in the two belief systems. Trump is as central to the modern Republican ideology as Jesus Christ is to Christianity. Without him, the party will crumble and need to restructure itself.
And in both those who believe that Adam and Eve were real people who walked the earth and those who believe that Trump is the true leader to save our nation, the most adamant devotees can be presented with challenges to their ideologies until we’re blue in the face without beginning to crack. The belief in Donald Trump is one that hinges on faith.
They pledge allegiance to him before they do the very flag because he’s grown to mean more. More than the constitution and the three branches of government and its checks and balances and democracy as a whole. He’s a flagrant embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins, and many within the religious community are willing to admit it. They know he’s a sacrilegious man, but if he’s the wall that will stand between women and their right to abortion, then he’s a risk worth taking.
But there are also those among Trump’s allies and enablers that know exactly who he is and the threat he poses. They just believe that the death of democracy would be more conducive to their personal ambitions. They consider him a Machiavellian means to greater ends — a blunt object that will beat the nation to a pulp to spite its face.
There’s a bold disconnect between the idea of Trump that so many harbor and the person that he actually is. It’s only through a suspension of disbelief that large swaths of his supporters can convince themselves that this felon, insurrectionist, and perpetually litigated tycoon that they see before them is the man who will save our nation from collapse.
The great challenge in confronting people across the aisle in our current political climate is that there’s little reconciling our divergent realities. It isn’t as simple as an exchange of sources and facts. When Trump is caught on video doing things that run counter to the vision that people hold of him, his supporters are faced with a strange cognitive dissonance.
They can watch him stoke violence with their own eyes and still downplay and deny it. They can hear audio of a phone call asking for non-existent votes to be manufactured in his favor and still contend it’s their opponents who stand as the threat to democracy. They can hear him explicitly call for “bloodbaths” should he lose and still convince themselves that he’s the man to preside over this country. They can turn their backs on sexual assault charges and Trump’s infamous admission that he could “grab women by the pussy.”
It diminishes Trump supporters to simply label them cult members. But for those among his ranks who fall into that definition, it’s important to call a spade a spade and understand precisely what we’re up against. Trump commands a support that doesn’t waiver in the face of fact checks or repeated contradictions. He employs the “Big Lie” technique and has continued sowing falsehoods about the 2020 election since the moment Biden was declared victorious.
His ability to power through scandals and trials and charges and campaigns riddled with should-be career-ending controversies is proof of what he is in the eyes of his supporters.
Trump is an idea more than he is a man. He’s a belief.
And getting people to walk away from a belief is harder than it is to get them to simply admit that they’re mistaken. It’s a challenge that’s begun to appear insurmountable. These notions about Trump have only managed to grow more deeply ingrained in many regards. But the dogma of Donald Trump isn’t indestructible and there are those among his base whose interest in his return to power is beginning to wane.
For every hundred supporters who’ve remained at his side, there’s one or two who’ve walked away. And in this fraught election, if enough people defect from Trump’s cult of personality, it could have a tide-turning effect on November’s outcome. It may seem as though there’s nothing we can do to change minds at this late stage, but it’s in refusing to even try that we give up. It’s when we start to sing our tune only to a converted choir that we forfeit this fight for our democracy.
Donald Trump: The Idea and the Man