Why do so many good, decent people continue to support Donald Trump, despite his numerous flaws? How can so many people who are invested in ethical and moral behavior and in safeguarding the unique and cherished institutions and norms of the United States support a leader whose behavior and actions frequently undermine them?
During the past year, we listened to Trump supporters in their homes, offices, and community centers. The study wasn’t about Trump. It was about understanding our neighbors, family members, and fellow citizens.
We found that genuine frustrations, institutional distrust, and the desire for strong leadership have led many to place their faith in a man who often contradicts the very principles they claim to value.
Totality of allegiance
A significant insight from our research is what we call the totality of allegiance. This type of loyalty transcends policy preferences or political alignment.
When individuals pledge their total allegiance to a leader, they often begin to overlook, excuse, or even justify actions that conflict with their personal values. Over time, this unwavering loyalty can erode the critical thinking and ethical reasoning that typically guide decision-making. Devotion to a person starts to overshadow loyalty to truth, institutions and core principles.
Such total allegiance doesn’t arise in isolation. It often stems from real, tangible concern like economic insecurity, cultural anxiety and a pervasive sense of uncertainty. When institutions — whether government, media, or other trusted authorities — seem to be failing them, people start to seek a leader who promises clarity and decisive action.
In this unstable environment, where misinformation and political appeals to the desires and prejudices of citizens instead of rational thought are rampant, individuals become more susceptible to figures who position themselves as saviors.
In our focus groups with 55 Trump supporters across Oklahoma, Arizona, Utah, and South Carolina, many participants expressed feeling overwhelmed by conflicting information. “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” one participant from Utah said.
It’s this sense of confusion and frustration that often drives people toward leaders like Trump, who cut through the complexity and offer simple, reassuring answers. This vulnerability is particularly heightened during periods of economic or social instability, when the world feels overwhelming and uncontrollable.
In these moments, people tend to gravitate toward black-and-white solutions — an approach that strongman figures, like Trump, excel at providing. While these figures promise order, they often do so at the expense of truth, leading to the gradual erosion of democratic values.
The people in our focus groups also felt a deepening distrust in traditional institutions, particularly the media, government and intellectual elites. One participant from South Carolina bluntly stated, “I’m unimpressed with smart people,” a sentiment reflecting a broader skepticism toward those perceived as disconnected from everyday realities.
This distrust, compounded by the overwhelming volume of conflicting information — some credible, much of it misleading — has further destabilized people’s relationship with the truth.
As this distrust in institutions such as the media, government, and even our very communities deepens, people become more inclined to seek out alternative sources of information that align with their preexisting views, often reinforcing their biases. In an environment where facts feel elusive and institutions meant to uphold truth are no longer trusted, the appeal of a leader who “tells it like it is” becomes almost irresistible.
Overshadowed judgment
This is where total allegiance to a leader can become dangerous, as it starts to overshadow critical thinking and rational judgment, leading to a blind loyalty at the expense of truth.
The appeal of Trump as a strongman figure was a recurring theme for the people we talked to. For many supporters, he represents decisiveness in the face of perceived threats, whether those threats are economic, cultural, or political.
Historically, we’ve seen similar dynamics play out. When people feel they are losing control of their world, they often turn to leaders who promise to restore order and protect them from these perceived dangers.
Hannah Arendt, one of the foremost political theorists of the 20th century, analyzed how totalitarian regimes rise to power. She explained that the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not necessarily someone committed to an ideology, but someone who can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood. When people lose this distinction, they are more easily drawn into total allegiance to a figure who presents himself as the only solution to their problems.
Trump, like other strongman leaders, has cultivated a narrative of persecution, where his supporters feel they are under siege from forces beyond their control. This blurring of fact and fiction, combined with emotional appeals for safety, is what makes these figures so dangerous.
When allegiance to a leader supersedes critical thinking, it leads to moral disengagement. That is a condition in which even actions that might otherwise be intolerable become rationalized in service to the leader’s promises.
At the core of Trumpism is a crisis of truth. We live in an era where misinformation is not only pervasive but deliberately weaponized. The lines between fact and falsehood are increasingly difficult to navigate, and many of the Trump supporters we spoke with were grappling with these blurred lines. Even those who acknowledged Trump’s flaws continued to rationalize their support for him, placing loyalty to the leader above loyalty to objective truth.
But this isn’t just about political loyalty. It’s about how people navigate a world where they feel abandoned by traditional sources of authority. As trust in institutions erodes, people turn to alternative — and often unreliable — sources of information that reinforce their beliefs and lead them deeper into the strongman’s orbit.
This creates a dangerous feedback loop where misinformation amplifies loyalty, further eroding social capital and widening divisions within our society.
The solution
The totality of allegiance is not something that can be easily broken by confrontation or condemnation. People cannot be saved from the dangerous allure of strongman figures and a disregard of democratic principles by criticism.
One of the most important takeaways from our research is that dismissing or vilifying Trump supporters does nothing to bridge these divides. The solution lies in empathetic engagement, in listening to those who feel confused and abandoned, and in addressing their genuine concerns with thoughtful dialogue.
As history has shown, when truth is sacrificed for loyalty, the foundation of democracy itself is at risk. The stakes could not be higher, and the time to act could not be more urgent.
We must remember that good people, caught in a web of misinformation and distrust, can still find their way back to the truth — and that we can be the agents who help them turn around.
Travis Ruddle and Bradley R. Agle, former director of the Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh, are professors at Brigham Young University and authors of “The Totality of Allegiance: Inside the Hearts and Minds of Trump Supporters.” Bradley R. Agle’s previous article was “A Republican Harris voter’s plea.”
First Published: September 29, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
