The Intensity of Trump Fandom Ultimately Says More About Modern Fandom Than Trump Himself
For the last five years or so I have found myself wondering, on a more or less daily basis, what it is about con man, probable sex criminal, sham university proprietor and all-around sleaze bag Donald Trump that inspires people to not just admire the twice-impeached one-term president but revere him as a golden God literally sent from heaven to save our nation from Communism and Antifa.
How could anyone fall for Trump’s shtick? Why couldn’t everyone see through his cynical cooption of populism? Why were people willing to sacrifice jobs, friendships and reputations at the altar of a crazed narcissist who clearly did not care about anyone other than himself? How could people look at Trump and see not just a good man worth voting for, but the secret savior of Western civilization?
Then again, I wondered those same things about Insane Clown Posse and its fans when I first started to research my 2013 book about Juggalos and Phish phans You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me and now I AM one of those Insane Clown Posse super-fans whose motivations bewildered me so.
I don’t think that’s coincidental. The terrifying depth of Donald Trump fandom has as much to do with the nature of fandom as Trump himself.
Having spent much of the last decade writing about musical fandom as it relates to Insane Clown Posse, Phish and “Weird Al” Yankovic, I can vouch that it just plain feels good to be a fan, to love something unapologetically and with your whole body and soul, and to want to share that passion with the world.
The more time and effort you put into being a fan, the more rewarding fandom generally is. With Trump, there was, and remains, no limit to how deep fandom could be.
It boggles the mind that we had a president, in Ronald Reagan, who was an actual movie star and a pair of presidents as handsome and charismatic as movie stars in John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.
Yet Reagan, Obama and JFK never inspired anywhere near the level of religious devotion and loyalty that Donald Trump does.
Trump isn’t just a populist politician: he’s also a cult leader and an entertainer whose best-selling books and hit shows about his ostensible success as a businessman have deceived the public into thinking he’s a world-class business mind despite ample evidence to the contrary.
Social media plays a big role in amplifying the intensity of Trump fandom to pathological levels. Until recently, Trump’s Twitter account let his worshipers feel like he was communicating directly to them without a “Fake News” filter, that he was constantly sharing his innermost thoughts, no matter how crass, vulgar or childish, regardless of how badly it made him look.
As with musical fandom, the intense spiritual and emotional connection that Trump shares with his cultists is rooted irrevocably in the electricity and excitement of live performance, in sacred gatherings where he does epic shows where he improvises extensively on familiar themes, not unlike a certain jam band I know and love for fans who would rather be at one of his big celebrations than literally anywhere else on earth.
Trump’s connection to his live audience is so important to him that he was literally willing to kill off his biggest supporters in big campaign rallies that predictably doubled as super-spreader events where the mask-less masses gathered during a deadly pandemic to worship at the feat of their tacky TV savior.
These fans were willing to risk exposure to COVID 19 for the sake of a few hours with their hero. As much as I love Phish, Insane Clown Posse and “Weird Al” Yankovic, I could never see myself risking my life, and the lives of others, for the sake of a few hours of entertainment..
On January 6th we learned that some Trump fans are devoted enough that they’re willing to commit crimes, humiliate our country internationally and desecrate the Capitol building for the sake of Trump’s enormous, fragile ego and delusional conviction that he won the 2020 presidential election by a “sacred” landslide.
As far as displays of devotion go, storming the Capitol building and terrorizing Trump’s enemies and allies for daring to acknowledge the reality of Biden’s victory is pretty damn extreme. So I can understand how shattered these super-fans must be that not only did Trump not recognize and appreciate the depth of their fandom, but he criticized them when it became absolutely essential for him to do so.
Trump cravenly turned on his biggest, most psychotic fans by pretending that they had gone rogue in attacking the Capitol building and were betraying the MAGA movement, not embodying it in its purest, most toxic form.
Don’t expect the insurrectionists to give up on Trump just because he threw them under the bus. It might not make sense for people to keep following someone who has criticized them for doing exactly what he told them to do but then fandom of that variety is rooted in raw, white-hot emotion, not cold logic.
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