Team Spirit in US Politics

There is reason to doubt that the swing voters of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin will find their hopes for the Trump Administration much met. There will not likely be a big upswing in good jobs; coal will not come roaring back; Mexico will not pay for any walls;  the number of people of dusky complexion will not noticeably decrease. There likely will be loss of health care coverage and the quality of that coverage and inroads against Medicare and Social Security. In short those lower middle income voters who voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016 because they were disappointed with their economic prospects may very well not find very much to celebrate in the coming years. Many, however, may well remain loyal for reasons that follow.

Those who were most enthusiastic in chanting “Jail her!” should have been the first to be disillusioned, but my guess is that they will stick with Trump somewhat more stubbornly than those who are focused on jobs and dollars. The bread is going to go to big business, leaving only circuses for the populist workers. That is to say that policy, as distinguished from rhetoric, is not going to stray so very far from recent Republican models. Tax cuts will overwhelmingly favor the upper brackets; there will be plenty of non-citizens to pick strawberries, mow lawns, clean hotel rooms, and also to write code. Trade is more a question mark, but my guess is that, despite a few well publicized symbolic actions,  the US Chamber of Commerce will be happy with the way goods pass across our borders.

How, then, can Trump expect to hold the high school educated white voter so crucial to his Electoral College win?

History shows that nationalism, especially a militarily muscular nationalism, can go a long way in keeping the support of disaffected populations who get little materially from a regime. Trump understands this. On inauguration day alone he made “America First” the official slogan of his presidential brand, signed a waiver to the civilian Secretary of Defense law; and proclaimed a National Celebration of Patriotism Day. He did not succeed in getting tanks and missiles into the inaugural parade, but that is apparently only because of the timing of his becoming Commander in Chief. 

 

Presumably he is confident that “America First” will not remind his target voters of the use of that slogan by Lindberg and other friends of Nazi German and that tanks and missiles on parade will not bring to their minds images of Red Square. He is doubtless largely right that nationalist rhetoric and tough guy posturing will sell pretty well. 

This may well not be enough, however, in the absence of tangible improvements in the quality of life and in the presence of all the many blotches on the President’s character and of his manifold and manifest conflicts of interest. (Use of the Presidential twitter account to go after Nortstrom for dropping  Ivanka’s fashion line, followed up by the public exhortation of senior White House adviser Conway to "go buy Ivanka's stuff," was doubtless only the first of a long sequence of abuses that will decorate his entire term in office.)

What might do the trick for Trump in retaining the loyalty of his base is the social psychology of “our team against your team.” Think of Red Sox and Yankees fans or Steelers and Ravens.  Someone who does not play for the Steelers, has no friends or family members who ever have, has no ownership share in the Steelers, is not a joint venture with or creditor of the franchise, may yet have a consuming, a visceral, attachment to the team. A Steeler win, especially over the Ravens, makes life worth living, and a loss, well a loss is a personal catastrophe. Americans are not unique in their devotion to sports teams (the Wikipedia article on “Football [soccer] Holiganism” has annotations for 50 countries) but the fan life is widespread and important in the US. Insofar as this phenomenon can be channeled into electoral politics, it may well engender a party loyalty that transcends such trivial matters as whether one’s party acts in one’s interest or is producing what it promised.

The comment sections after news items on such sites as Yahoo and AOL show that the team psychology in politics is strong and growing. There is some discussion of issues, occasionally even informed and intelligent discussion of issues. More frequent, however, is name calling, taunting, extravagant hyperbole, and outright demonization of the other party and any and all of its leaders and adherents. Trolls of Democratic allegiance are among the guilty, but the substantial majority of offenders are Trump-Republicans. 

If they can be kept away from policy issues and real world facts and kept focused on the perceived evils of the Democrats, (and of course the media and the Muslims) then it is possible the Steeler fan come what may will also be the Trump fan come what may. The gung ho fan is not very likely to be open minded about reports, or even facts observed first hand, that might tend to undermine the strength of his team commitments