ABSTRACT
Donald Trump’s supporters view him as a savvy and heroic businessman who will “Make America Great Again” by revitalizing the economy, building a wall to repel illegal immigrants, and using military force to annihilate Islamic terrorists. To the president’s detractors, however, Trump is a functionally illiterate, pathologically lying, bigoted con man entirely unfit for public office. This chapter presents an existential account of the psychological underpinnings of support and opposition to Trump based on cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker’s view that the uniquely human awareness of death gives rise to potentially paralyzing terror that is “managed” by embracing cultural worldviews that afford a sense of meaning and value. From this perspective, both support for and opposition to Trump reflect a deep sense of grief from existential threats to their respective cultural worldviews. Specifically, Trump’s supporters mourn the loss of a past “golden age” (real and imagined) when well-paying manufacturing jobs were plentiful and American military and economic prowess was respected around the world—while Trump’s detractors mourn the loss of a future “golden age” based on the Enlightenment tradition’s reliance on reason, admiration for democracy and civil society, faith in progress, and respect for the natural environment.
