THE SECURITARIAN PERSONALITY

A sociological investigation of Donald Trump’s true believers, who are somewhat different from the usual shorthand descriptions.

“Like the great majority of Americans, I am not a Trump supporter, avid or otherwise,” writes University of Nebraska political scientist Hibbing. “However, unlike the great majority of Americans, I am an empirical social scientist, and this means my job is…to collect and interpret evidence on the nature of the social world.” Where the standard narrative is to depict Trump voters as fearful, hateful, and thick-headed, Hibbing finds such descriptors less useful and less accurate than to describe the base as being “securitarian” versus “unitarian.” Those who have remained in Trump’s camp throughout his term hold a strong commitment to the idea that insiders (read: white American native-born citizens) are to be privileged over and protected from outsiders (everyone else). In this in-group devotion, Hibbing finds Trump believers to be “eerily similar” to supporters of Putin, Orban, Bolsonaro, Farage, Duterte, and other world leaders who have been described as nationalists, authoritarians, and fascists. Trump’s ideology, writes the author, is fundamentally not us vs. them but “us vs. not-us.” The border wall, the immigration crackdown, the denial of DREAM Act supporters, and other Trump hallmarks are manifestations of this securitarian, insider-against-outsider stance. In a narrative that is heavy on social science and statistics, Hibbing chases down the demographics of those true believers: They are white, foremost, and secondarily whites without a college degree. (This same core demographic voted for George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, Hibbing observes.) Securitarians are committed to walling off “the other” but do not attribute this to racism or xenophobia and are puzzled when others do. Neither do they hate democracy, adds Hibbing, though “a strong majority of Trump venerators would sacrifice democratic values in a heartbeat if doing so led to greater security.”

An illuminating look at the drivers of illiberal nativism—and of support for its chief modern exponent.