'Trump is our bully': Why some Americans can't quit the president

With the midterm elections less than two weeks away, the American people are preparing to vote in what will be one of the most important midterm elections in the country’s history.

Leading political analysts and pollsters predict that Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are facing an electoral wipeout. They will likely lose control of the House — and perhaps even the Senate. Driving this is a collapse in support among Trump’s base voters who returned him to the White House in the 2024 Election.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll puts Trump’s approval rating at a record low 31%.

But Trump has not lost all of his base.

Trump and the MAGA Republicans have inflicted a large amount of economic and material pain on the white working class and poor people in Appalachia and other rural parts of red-state America. Yet, many of these people still love him. Why?

Arlie Hochschild, professor emerita of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, has spent years exploring this question. She is the author of many books, including Strangers in Their Own Land and, most recently, Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right.

In this conversation, Hochschild warns that President Trump has “emotionally captured” many poor and working-class voters by speaking to their economic insecurity, resentment, wounded dignity and sense of lost honor. Drawing on her recent experiences in eastern Kentucky, she explores the forces behind Trump’s enduring appeal and what liberals and Democrats should do to break Trump’s hold over the region.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

NBC News recently featured a harrowing, just an outright sad story, about a rural community in West Virginia that overwhelmingly voted for Trump but is now experiencing widespread hunger. People are literally starving because of his administration’s cuts to the social safety net and the MAGA Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill.” Help me understand how these people can continue to support a man who is actively hurting them?

For the last five years, I have been spending time in Kentucky's 5th congressional district. It's the second poorest and whitest congressional district in the country, and it used to support the New Deal Democrats. In the last three elections, it zinged to the right. 80% for Trump, 20% for Harris among those who voted. This is a region of loss.

You had coal jobs. They were tough jobs. They gave you black lung. You died early, but they were well paid in a one-industry region. Those jobs have left, and everybody knows they're really not coming back. Opiates have come in big time. Jobs out, opiates in. The rise of the right around the country has to do with a response to loss, and these guys have lost a lot.

In comes Donald Trump. I describe what he did as emotional capture.

Part one: someone comes from out of town, a type of magic man, and he makes an appeal for recognition. How did a billionaire of New York City make Appalachian unemployed coal miners feel recognized? You talk to loss. He talked about how terrible things are. He says things like how low down you are. You used to be proud, and now you're ashamed. You used to have a lot and make a contribution to the country, and now you're nothing.

The second is a persuasive narrative. I call it the narrative of stolen pride. Who took that pride? It didn't just go away. Someone stole it. Trump signals that he recognizes that it was stolen. I'll get it back with retribution, he says. Maybe someone else is responsible. Maybe it's the immigrants, people in the press, government workers.

The third thing is an anti-shaming ritual. Donald Trump says something outrageous. He says Haitian immigrants are eating people's pet cats and dogs. The pundits shame him. The comics and left-wing commentators have at him. Donald Trump becomes the victim of the shamers. “Look how they're shaming me. Don't you, my supporters, know what that feels like? You guys that used to be something. They are doing to me what they want to do to you!”

And here is Donald Trump's hidden Jesus moment: I will take the shame off of you. I take it onto myself. Welding yourself to me must feel good. I'm heavier. I have the burden that was once on you.

When the camera is not on them, and the mic is off, do these people really believe in Donald Trump?

No. I talked to people before the second term, and they'd say, "Oh, I know he's a liar and a bully, but he's good for us. Nobody else is here for us. Trump is our bully. I heard that a lot. Don't think I'm fooled. They are allergic to anything they perceive as left-wing — and they really hate that more than a lying, depriving, Republican president.

The sense I have now is that they don't think Trump is wonderful. Now I hear people who are depressed. The shine is off the magic man Trump. But the people who live in this part of Appalachia are stoics. They are used to being punished by life, and they're going into an "Okay, I can bear it" mode. There isn't switching gears, but there's a retreat, a type of depressive withdrawal, and they are prepared to be shamed for having voted for the guy that's making them miserable.

But the Democrats should not go there. Instead, they should say we have better ideas. There are real problems in your region, and we're devoted to taking them on. The Democrats have to look at themselves and make every alliance they can. The Democrats have been marginalized in this culture — and they are in danger of that marginalization becoming worse.

Under Trump’s second term, are things getting better or worse for the working-class and poor people in rural Appalachia and similar communities?

It is terrible. All the promises have not come through. Donald Trump has not brought back coal. He has not brought back well-paying jobs in other industries. Trump has not substantively addressed the opiate crisis. And of course, all of the cuts made by the “Big Beautiful Bill” have been especially lethal for people in Appalachia and other parts of rural America. Food stamps have been cut. This is a food-insecure region. So, they're in a hole.

I'm very interested in how individuals and communities cope with adversity and stress. What are you seeing in the churches, the community centers, and other places where people gather and socialize in this part of Appalachia? What are you sensing?

I think that Donald Trump has found fertile territory in the social deserts that loss and downward mobility have created. The Rotary Club meetings and small shops have been undercut by Amazon and Home Depot. There are lots of dollar stores and gas stations, but not many social gathering places. That has to be addressed and rebuilt.

Eight or nine months ago, I went back to Pike County for what the people in Stolen Pride called a “hollerlogue.” Some were for Trump, and some were very against him. I thought it was brilliant. People on the left, liberals who are living in cities and highly educated, have a lot to learn from these folks about how to talk across the political divide.

One guy who was very anti-Trump began by saying, “I think every child, whether they come from a poor family or a rich family, ought to be able to eat three meals a day.”

The Trump supporters agreed. But the anti-Trumper said, “Donald Trump is cutting food stamps, and we're the second-poorest area in the country, so I'm against Donald Trump.”

The Trump follower replied, “I thought he wasn’t cutting food. If you're able-bodied, you should be able to work 35 hours for that food. And I believe in work.”

“Look, I believe in work too,” the anti-Trumper said, “but a lot of people are caring for others who are ill, and some are mothers of small children who can't work. The jobs here only pay eight or nine dollars an hour. We all drive clunkers and live in the mountains. Once you spend money on gas you have lost money. How can you say you have to work for food stamps with no sustaining jobs?”

But it was all respectful. They would take breaks to reaffirm what they had in common. I thought it was a local model for something that should be happening nationally.

Under Trump, there's been the lateralization of resentment and hate, so that the middle class is fighting the middle class. Meanwhile, money and resources are being transferred from the poor to the rich. Divide and rule is preventing the kinds of alliances that the liberal left needs to rebuild in the absence of unions.

What would you say to liberals, progressives, Democrats, and others who, like me, are losing — or have lost — much of their empathy for the Trump supporters who are being hurt by the very policies and man they put back in the White House?

I would introduce you to people on the other side that you would like, and that you would feel are kind and who share your concerns. It doesn't take long to peel back some of this Trump-fostered hate. What it takes is recognizing them as human beings and remembering that these were Clinton Democrats. They were big New Dealers in this area. This area. Same people, same lineage, same family. They are emotionally captured by Trump.

In whose interest is it to divide and rule? It's in the interest of Donald Trump. It is not in our interests as progressives and liberals and Democrats to divide rural from urban, poor from middle class, college-educated and those who are less formally educated. We're playing into Trump's hands the more we divide and separate. We're digging our own graves in this way without reaching out.

Chauncey DeVega is a politics and opinion writer whose work considers American democracy, inequality, political power, and the enduring significance of race in American society and the wider world. He was formerly a senior politics writer at Salon. His essays and commentary have been cited by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, NPR, The Atlantic, and other leading publications. He hosts two podcasts: The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report.