In 2016, scholar Matthew MacWilliams’ was puzzled at the appeal of then-candidate Donald Trump. Nearly 10 years later, MacWilliams’ told the Bulwark that the thing that made you a Trump supporter in 2016 is still the reason you are today.
“So, are [his supporters] poorly educated? Are they white? Is this race based? Is this about trade and the hollowing out of the middle class?” asked Bulwark writer Sam Stein.
“It’s the authoritarian outlook,” answered MacWilliams, author of “The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter.” A Trump supporter is “someone who wants authority and order, who doesn’t like diversity at all and who will sacrifice liberty for security.”
READ MORE: 'No question': GOP strategist confesses Republicans are terrified by outperforming Dems
“It’s a disposition that gets turned on by fear,” added MacWilliams, “and it’s always out there.”
MacWilliams said his findings were based on a series of poll questions used to detemine if a person has authoritarian proclivities, such as: “We need a strong leader who pays no attention to Congress or the courts to make decisions for us: Agree or Disagree.”
At the time MacWilliams covered the World Values Survey in 2016, he told Stein authoritarian proclivities in the U.S. were at 34 percent, but he believes it now stands at about 38 percent.
When Trump first came down the golden escalator at the beginning of his candidacy nearly 10 years ago MacWilliams said his first speech was written from an authoritarian perspective, written to activate other authoritarians.
READ MORE: Republican civil war feared over new Trump order targeting 'scruffy-bearded' weirdos
“Our country needs a truly great leader. … We need somebody that will literally take this county and make it great again,” Trump told the crowd. Later in the speech, Trump took the classic authoritarian move of targeting and isolating a vulnerable class of people.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” Trump said in a now infamous attempt at alienation.
“He is really pushing authoritarian buttons,” MacWilliams said.
Stein noted how Trump pulled in people with authoritarian proclivities across party lines. “A lot of people who sorted to Trum were Democrats and I think a lot of people have difficulty conceiving of the idea that people who identify as Democrats also have a proclivity for authoritarian tendencies … and Trump did activate that,” Stein said.
READ MORE: Surprise! Donald Trump is cheating the system — again
MacWilliams agreed, saying “Before the culture wars started, in the 1960s, authoritarian proclivities were equally sorted across parties, but it started moving into the Republican party over time. They haven’t all sorted into the Republican party at all.”
Watch the Bulwark podcast at this link.