Loyalty to Trump is an extreme and very visible example of something that ALL HUMANS are doing most of the time.
We have an unconscious emotional need or agenda, and then our rational brain makes adjustments to accommodate it. You’ve heard of denial, of dissociation, of cognitive dissonance, of rationalization??
It’s much less about Trump and much more about how our brains actually work.
So that’s the general answer … the specific answer is that the brain & body have specific active mechanism’s to preserve stability (called homeostasis in biology).
Too much change (or threat of change) and those mechanisms become activated and exert pressure to return to “normal”. It’s (partially) this mechanism that causes someone to keep returning to an alcoholic, addicted or abusive partner.
For a long time, alcoholism was very difficult to treat, it was not well understood and it was suspected that it was caused by a “character defect” in the individual. But some bright people noticed that the alcoholics were staying sober for MONTHS in treatment, but that they fell off the wagon only days or weeks after returning home. It turns out that a formerly drunk family member, by becoming sober, was destabilizing the family system and the OTHER family members were exerting unconscious pressure to get them back into their old & familiar role. This was ALL UNCONSCIOUS and even happening from the family members who SUFFERED THE MOST at the hands of the addict.
Getting back to Trump, our world is changing faster than ever before. But it’s not just the pace of change, it’s the nature of it that feels permanent & irrevocable.
To most non-tech people (especially older folks), an iPhone is pixie-dust. It’s unbelievable all the things it can do. And I believe many of us can read the tea-leaves … but only intuitively
… as you saw above with denial and disassociation, certain things cannot be faced consciously and directly. They are TOO threatening, stressful and destabilizing … so they remain unconscious.
So what do these tea-leaves say??
This change is creating a world where I no longer fit. I no longer have a place or a role. And even worse, my ability to provide for myself and my family is disappearing. Technology is coming for my job and I don’t know how to stop it.
People are terrified, and in all high stress situations, the rational brain takes a back-seat, and the limbic brain takes over.
I believe it’s THIS existential angst that largely explains the Trump phenomena. And it also explains why populism is exploding around the world. It’s a clear tell that there is some big bogyman “out there” coming to harm us.
Additionally, there are certain personalities that view ALL CHANGE as a potential threat. They will vote for a “50’s guy” even if they have lots of money and zero fear about losing their income stream to the robots.