37%!?! The Trumputin Effect, Tribalism, and Strongmen

A recent poll by The Economist and YouGov found that 37% of Republicans  have a “favorable view” of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. (It’s 10% of Democrats also!; I don’t know who these Democrats are and I don’t want to know.)

That’s a “favorable view” of someone who is responsible for the deaths of Syrian civilians in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. That’s in addition to  thousands of casualties resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, plus the bloody invasion of Georgia in 2008, not to mention cyberwarfare against Baltic states, and, within Russia itself, continuing violent repression of critical investigative media and opposition voices in general.  In other words, a “favorable view” of someone for whom there’s a compelling case to charge as a war criminal several times over.

Oh, and we might mention that he lies about absolutely everything that sheds a bad light on Russia (last I heard he was still denying that Russian troops had entered eastern Ukraine, except to protect Ukrainian rebels. Why does this sound like Saturday Night Live?). 

OK, we know all this bad stuff, but why? (I mean why the approval by Republicans, not why Putin did all this stuff: he’s an old-fashioned tyrant in a 21st Century suit.)

There’s a groundswell of approval of good ol’ mass murderer Vladimir among the Trumpocracy.   What explains this?  There are multiple reasons, among which is the expressed admiration of Putin by our President-elect. I’ve added links at the end of this post for analysis by keener minds than my own, and for sure this is complicated. . .  HOWEVER, at the risk of oversimplification, I venture the following explanation:

He’s a strongman, what’s not to like? This lies at the core of the thinking  of Trump and his followers. Putin is seen as decisive and without apology for his deeds, whatever the consequences: an iron-fisted man of action set on expanding the glory of his country.  He’s the kind of guy Trump admirers wish The Donald himself could be, were it not for the inconvenient fetters of a constitutional democracy. For them, a system that rewards cunning, ruthlessness, and disregard for law, is precisely the setting in which a “strong leader” should be free to operate. A system that is ripe for exploitation by a sociopath who promises to act on behalf of “The People.”

A “Strongman” rises in an environment of tribalism

Donald Trump has fanned the fires of tribalism in a way that may not have been seen in the United States since the Civil War. Tribalism is a vestige of evolution that may have served tribesmembers well 5,000 years ago when the world was lightly populated and interactions between tribes were few—but has outlived its usefulness.

Thanks to population growth and the pace of technology, we are all crowded together on this planet in an interconnected world where tribalism’s only effect is destructive. Still, we are wired to be tribal, and tribalism is poised to erupt whenever the social fabric weakens. What has weakened the fabric recently is (1) an appalling level of economic inequality, and (2) disruptive communication technologies that enable tribes to come together rapidly in social media enclaves, the “echo chambers” where members feed off of each other’s biases in narrow, self-reinforcing comfort zones.

We now have political and ideological “tribes” that complicate the picture of traditional tribes based on race, ethnicity, religion, and geography. There is tribal cross-fertilization, but when push comes to shove individuals will give allegiance to the tribe with which they most identify—any tribe is better than none in a moil of uncertainty.

Tribalism, rampant in the economically undeveloped regions of the world, has now erupted in the developed world in the form of nativist movements in Europe and the U.S.  Social, cultural, racial, and ethnic divisions have deepened, exacerbated by a torrent of Syrian refugees combined with the threat of terrorism. A group that feels threatened seeks safety in the embrace of a strongman to protect them by walling out and purging those not belonging to the ruling tribe.

Closing the Wealth Gap May Be Less than Half the Answer

Tom Steyer’s current “worth” is $1.6 billion according to the Wikipedia entry.  George Soros’s worth (upwards of $20 billion) is off the charts. Both of them have made their fortunes in finance—playing with money. Yet, do we liberals begrudge their vast wealth, or how they obtained it? No (not I, at least), because they are with us—progressives, fighting our battles with resources at their command on a par with those of the Koch brothers. We welcome their power to work on behalf of our causes. They belong to our ideological “tribe,” and our worldview has more in common with their worldview than with that of many of our neighbors—those within our own economic stratum but who have “Don’t Tread on Me” license plates.

The problem is not so much the wealth gap per se, but the fact that those at the bottom are getting sucked under. If they had a modicum of security and dignity, would we be worrying about a wealth gap?

In fact (actually, I don’t know directly it’s a fact, but I trust NPR to have gotten it right),  core Trump supporters have above-median incomes, and they’re applauding Trump’s cabinet picks, who will be once again pushing a trickle-down agenda.  It’s not the rich they resent, it’s the outsiders—Muslims, Mexicans, Lying Liberal Media, LGBT members, internationalists, uppity blacks, uppity women, and uppity black women—who really do represent a threat to their way of life, to the white nativist tribe.

[oops, I promised links to better explanations than mine, but out of time to fetch them. You know how: search “37% Republicans Putin” and the hits will rattle]