My Apology to Trumpers

How I have misjudged your morality

I tend to disparage Trump supporters in stark terms. From my perspective if you support such a horrible person, either you cannot be a good person yourself or you are profoundly stupid or ignorant. But there is a third option I have not seriously considered, which puts many Republicans in a different light to me.

Trumpers Are Not Entitled to Respect

Maybe, just maybe, they don't support all the horrible stuff Trump says and does despite being informed of it. Despite not being ignorant or stupid.

The Moment That Changed My Perspective

I had this insight recently after listening to the Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre. It was a debate in Norway about Trump and our future. The fear that NATO is now over and what to do about it. In this debate, Støre made the usual denouncements, but he was overly cautious. He even speculated that Trump just was just using colorful language and didn't fully mean what he said. It was all so utterly familiar. The desperate attempts to minimize and reinterpret what Trump had said to make it seem as if Trump isn't all that dangerous or bad.

The US is no longer our ally

Remember, Støre is not a Republican. He is a staunch social democrat. His values are closer to Bernie Sanders than to Trump. I was upset by his failure to call out Trump in starker terms.

The Fear of Breaking With Your Tribe

But it was not until this morning that I started getting a realization about the nature of us human being when facing dramatic changes. I watched CNN coverage of Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Sen. John Kennedy. In this segment, it was clear that Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican, had no love of Putin. In fact he wanted Putin to be put on trial and possibly executed for war crimes.

It became obvious to me that this guy did not support Trump's words on Ukraine and Putin. Yet he was not breaking away from the Republican party. I started asking myself: what would that take?

The Psychological Cost of Changing Sides

I often try to imagine myself in the shoes of people I don't like. It could be anyone from Assad to Putin. I try to imagine how they see the world, rather than how I see the world. We tend to think that everyone sees the world the same way and choose to react that same reality. Hence we tend to think that evil people see that they are doing evil things. But it is my belief that most of the time, the people we might label as "evil" see an entirely different reality where their actions are justified and perhaps even good.

I don't know Senator Roger Wicker, but I like to imagine he is a classic Republican. Grew up around other deeply religious and conservative people. He had a military career, which means many of the people he worked with were likely conservative as well. So his friends and colleagues are likely conservative. Now he is facing a reality in which the morally right thing to do is to turn your back on the Republican party and side with the Democrats.

How hard is that step to make for a man like Senator Roger Wicker? Likely very hard. His values have not suddenly become liberal. He will not feel home in the Democratic party. They are people he opposed and argued against all his life. His whole identity is at stake here. Turning his back on the Republican party means he risk friends, colleagues and even his own sense of identity. He will have to ask the unpleasant question: "Are we the baddies?"

Post-Rationalization: The Mind’s Greatest Defense Mechanism

And here is the kicker: Nobody wants to see themselves as the bad guy. You don't want to realize that through a large fraction of your life you have sided with the entirely wrong people who have led you down a very dark path. So instead of accepting our grave mistake, we use our brains to post-rationalize. We try to find ways to reinterpret everything our side is doing. Horrendous quotes from Trump? Oh, that is just Trump. He doesn't really mean it. He is a businessman. He talks a bit different. It is just a scheme to get a better negotiation position. No, actually it is a form of advanced 4D chess the liberals don't get. He isn't really that bad. The liberals just love to exaggerate.

If you are on the left you might go, "Oh please! Don't make excuses for Republicans, they know what they are doing!"

Do they? Because what I realized thinking back about my prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre is that we do exactly the same thing. Jonas engaged in exactly the same desperate attempt to minimize and trivialize the behavior of Donald Trump. Why did he do that? He isn't a Republican. He doesn't have conservative friends or colleagues he is afraid to break with.

No, he doesn't, but he has something else.

He represents a country that has had over a hundred years of alliance, formally or informally, with the United States. We are a small country on the border of a massive aggressive, over-militarized country, named Russia. In such a situation it feels very comfortable to be best friends with the biggest, baddest dude in town, America. If you are buddies with America, nobody dares mess with you.

Losing America as an ally is scary. And so our politicians walk on eggshells around Trump. They try a balancing act to make sure they say that they really don't agree with his views, while watering it down as much as possible to avoid upsetting Trump and risking our military alliance.

So what do Norwegian Social Democrat Støre and American Republican Wicker have in common?

Fear.

They are both afraid of change. They are afraid of making a choice that unravels everything they know and love. They are both desperately clinging to the world they know and which they want to continue existing.

The Politics of Fear and the Abusive Relationship Analogy

It is very similar to a somebody in an abusive relationship. You start walking on eggshells, hoping that if only you are careful enough the narcissist or psychopath you share a life with will behave. He or she will not lash out and hurt you or explode in anger. Keep calm, be diligent. Guard your words. Do anything you can to keep everything normal and calm. Just get through the day.

This can go on for years. Even decades because nobody wants to be a victim. Instead we like to tell ourselves stories to convince ourselves it isn't really that bad. The thought of leaving the abuser is too scary.

The Science of Fear: A Harassment Experiment

Researchers once did a survey of women to see how they would react to sexual harassment. Everyone imagines themselves as getting angry and shouting back at the perpetrator.

What these women didn't know was that they were in an experiment to check the difference between how we imagine we would react and how we actually react. They set it up so these women experienced a job interview with a lot of sexual harassment. None of the women spoke up and got angry. None resisted. In fact the complete opposite happened. They became extra friendly and compliant. Why was that? That sounds counterintuitive. Does it mean they liked being harassed?

No, it was because rather than feeling anger these women all felt fear. None of them had been prepared for how being in such a situation would induce fear. Thus their reaction was all about appeasement. They acted extra friendly to avoid escalation or confrontation of any kind. This is exactly what is happening around Trump. He is the abuser, and rather than react forcefully against him, we react with fear. Instead of scolding him, we start getting extra friendly and accommodating. It is a natural psychological defense mechanism. Basically we are hoping that if we are just being very kind to him, he will not hurt us. Of course this only emboldens an abuser and a bully.

This is my realization about many of you Republicans that I have disparaged. You are not bad immoral people. No, you are afraid. You are afraid to accept a reality that would make you one of the baddies. You are afraid of losing your friends, community and your whole identity.

When Open War Is Upon You

This scene from Lord of the Rings taking place at Edoras keeps coming to my mind as I see how the world is developing. It is an exchange between the King or Rohan, Théoden, and Aragorn. The forces of Sauron and Saruman is threatening his realm.

Théoden: “I know what it is you want of me, but I will not bring further death to my people. I will not risk open war.”

Aragorn: “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.”

Støre and Wicker are both acting the role of King Théoden. They do not want to accept that the consequences of the Trump world is upon them. There will be major upheaval and re-alignment in the world whether we would risk it or not.

Trump is an aggressive expansionist, wannabe autocrat and fascist, who is allied with Putin. That reality needs to sink in sooner rather than later.

The Historical Parallel: When the Left Had to Choose

I want to say this to my Republican friends: I know the feeling. I have made these bad choices when facing bad people numerous times myself. And I know my side, the left, has made these mistakes. I am a socialist and I know many socialists here in Norway decades ago made the mistake of supporting people like Mao and Pol Pot. Naturally this was a more extreme mistake, but they also had much less information about Mao and Pol Pot, because we didn't live in a social media world. These places were both dictatorships where change would always be violent. That was unavoidable. Many socialists clung to the idea that Mao and Pol Pot were not that bad. That it was just capitalist propaganda amplifying the bad things they did.

Like Wicker, they had devoted their life to championing a good socialist society. They did not want to accept that they had ended up being the baddies. So they desperately began post rationalizing everything. Like Støre they began trivializing and minimizing the bad things.

But there is another way. The longest serving prime minister in Norwegian history was prime minister for a whole 17 years. He was a staunch socialist and one of the political heroes. In Norway he is spoken about with great reference by everyone. We refer to him as “Father of the Nation.” Now why would I suddenly mention him in this story? Because he once made the trip to Russia to celebrate the victory of Vladimir Lenin in the Russian revolution. Why would he do that? Because they both shared a vision for a socialist future.

When the oppression and atrocities of the Russian state became apparent, Gerhardsen could have done like the AKP-ml movement in Norway did in the 1970s. He could have trivialized it and minimized it. Instead he completely rejected what the Soviets stood for. Despite being a socialist he chose to ally with capitalist America.

I Welcome Trump Supporters

It’s Time for Republicans to Make a Brave Choice

The same brave decision Gerhardsen made, many of you Republicans must make today. You must accept that a powerful force on "your side" has gone too far. And that in this decisive moment in history you must instead side with your old enemies, the Democrats. Gerhardsen went against fellow Russian socialists and sided with American capitalists, because he knew that democracy and rule of law was more important.

If you are Republican you must accept that even if you don't like big government, DEI, wokeism, liberal immigration policies and many other aspects of the Democratic party they are still a party that believes in the rule of law and Democracy. They are still a party that believes in the alliance with us here in Europe on the other side of the Atlantic rather than with Russian autocrat Putin.

Norwegians learned that lesson during WW2. In the 1930s the socialists and conservatives became bitter enemies. But Nazi occupation taught the bourgeoisie and working class to work together for Norwegian freedom. Ukraine before the Russian invasion were also a divided country. Divided between Russian speakers. Divided between those who wanted to be part of Russia, or another reimagined Soviet Union. Now everyone regardless of the language they grew up speaking are proud Ukrainians. The nation is united, but at a terrible cost.

Don't wait until things get that bad before you find unity with your Democrat opponents. You may disagree on many things, but surely you believe in a free America that is not ruled by a king. Trump recently compared himself to a king:

CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!

– Donald Trump, Truth Social

You can try to dismiss it as hyperbole and that is just Trump being Trump, but hasn't that excuse worn out by now? Stop minimizing and trivializing what Trump is saying as if you are an abuse victim doing your best to cope. Find your courage to call him out instead.

To end this story. Let me summarize: I apologize for thinking only bad people would support Trump. I think many of you are in fact good people who simply lack courage to accept reality, because doing so would bring your whole world down. We should not mock people for lacking courage. We all struggle with courage. Instead we must support each other. Those of us on the left must stretch out our hand and welcome Trump supporters. We can accept that you do not believe in all the same things we do. But you share our belief in democracy and rule of law. Let that be our shared platform.

Update: I struggle a lot with what to think of Trumpism as a phenomenon and what it says about people. There is so much complex psychology behind it and reasons. Hence my views oscillate. Below is an alternative more recent perspective. In part based on responses to this article.