MAGA Came For The Cruelty

Trump supporters don’t just tolerate the cruelty. They show up for it.This is not a political observation. It is not a talking point. It is a documented psychological finding that explains everything about the last ten years of American politics that conventional wisdom refuses to name out loud.The disabled reporter getting mocked on a national stage. The families being separated at the border. The protesters he fantasizes about having roughed up. The political enemies he promises will go to prison. The trans kids he has made into a target for an entire movement.The crowd is not cheering despite the cruelty. They are cheering because of it.And the research is unambiguous about why.In 2013, psychologists Erin Buckels and Delroy Paulhus at the University of British Columbia identified a trait they called everyday sadism. The enjoyment of causing pain or humiliation to others. Not in a criminal way. In the ordinary daily way that shows up as trolling, bullying, and feeling genuine pleasure when the right people suffer.Everyday sadism is not rare. It exists on a spectrum. And it turns out it is extremely well distributed across the American population. What varies is not its presence but its permission. Most people who carry it never act on it because the social cost is too high. You cannot walk into work and openly celebrate a child being taken from their mother at a border crossing. You cannot tell your neighbors you enjoyed watching a disabled man get mocked by the most powerful person in the country.Until you can.Until someone gives you a context where that enjoyment is not just permitted but celebrated. Where the crowd around you is cheering the same thing you are cheering. Where the leader on the stage is performing the cruelty you came to see and calling it strength.That is what Trump built. Not a political coalition. A permission structure.Buckels and Paulhus found that everyday sadism is the single strongest predictor of internet trolling across all four Dark Tetrad traits. Not just arguing online. Actively seeking out the suffering of people they see as enemies and enjoying it. Putting in actual effort for the chance to watch someone hurt.That finding explains everything the media keeps getting wrong about Trump rallies.Political analysts spend enormous energy trying to understand why Trump supporters keep showing up. Why they donate. Why they spend hours online attacking strangers. Why they drive hours to stand in a field and scream. The answer the analysts keep reaching for is economic anxiety. Or cultural displacement. Or distrust of institutions.The research says something simpler and far more uncomfortable.They are paying for access to cruelty. And they keep showing up because he keeps delivering.The research also found something that explains the intensity. Everyday sadism is the one Dark Tetrad trait that predicts willingness to work for the opportunity to hurt someone. Not just when it is easy. To put in actual effort. To sacrifice time and money and energy for the chance.That is not a voter base. That is an audience. And Trump has always known the difference.Every rally is a performance. Every enemy named from the podium is a gift to the crowd. Every promise of retribution is an appetizer. Every mock. Every insult. Every fantasy of violence directed at the right targets lands exactly the way it is designed to land. Not as a policy position. As a delivery.And this reframes everything about the last decade of Republican governance.The immigration policy that separates families is not a side effect of border security. The trans policy that humiliates children is not a side effect of protecting them. The attack on voting rights is not a side effect of election integrity. The suffering is not incidental to the policy. The suffering is the policy. The cruelty is not a bug. It is the product. It is what was ordered. It is what gets delivered. It is what brings people back.This is why facts do not work on this movement. You cannot argue someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into. And you cannot appeal to empathy in people who are not experiencing the empathy deficit you think they have. They know families are being separated. They know trans kids are being targeted. They know protesters are being threatened.That is not the problem. That is the point.Trump has always known it. He has never pretended otherwise. From the first moment he rode down that escalator and called Mexicans rapists he was not making a policy argument. He was making a promise. He was telling a specific segment of the American population that he knew what they wanted. That he would give it to them. That under his leadership the cruelty they had always felt but never been permitted to perform would finally have a home.He has kept that promise every single time he opens his mouth.He knows exactly what they came for.And he has never once failed to deliver it.SourcesBuckels, E. E., Jones, D. N., and Paulhus, D. L. (2013). Behavioral Confirmation of Everyday Sadism. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2201 to 2209.Paulhus, D. L., and Williams, K. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of Personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556 to 563.Buckels, E. E., Trapnell, P. D., and Paulhus, D. L. (2014). Trolls Just Want to Have Fun. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 97 to 102. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lucasbean.substack.com/subscribe