What Drives Far-Right MAGA Conservatives?
Fear and a very restrictive sense of empathy, for the most part
Trump’s election to the Presidency — both back in his first term in 2016 and now, in 2025 — has sparked a conflagration of conflict.
Families and friends have split down the middle, with neutrality being viewed as a cop out and extremism and radicalization becoming mainstream.
I don’t just mean the United States; I’m Canadian and I feel the division over politics even here.
We have our Maple MAGA folks up here who agree with his rhetoric and want to emulate it, and we’ve got our regular folks who think they’ve gone completely mad. I fall into the second column, myself; I value diversity, cooperation and community sustainability.
I don’t care where my neighbours were born, so long as they’re good neighbours and we get along okay. Kindness is my bare minimum expectation for all of us. Keep to that, and we’re golden — especially if you have a garden, so we can talk about plants.
But this intense division over politics has left many of us with whiplash.
All too often we’ve discovered things about family and friends that we didn’t know before, things that cast them and our relationships in a very different light. Marriages have broken up over political disagreements more often in the last few years than I ever remember hearing about in the past.
I even wrote an article about the phenomenon back in December, defending those who choose to cut off contact with MAGA-voting relatives. I stand by it.
I don’t believe that this constitutes ‘breaking up over politics.’ It isn’t about that. I believe it represents a sharp divide on morality, ethics and worldviews.
And for those of us in this situation, there’s a question ringing in our heads that really needs answering: what on Earth are these people thinking?
What drives far-right MAGA Conservatives to support what Trump is doing?
So, let’s talk about it, and see if we can answer that question.
It’s common for people on the left to refer to the MAGA movement — ardent Trump supporters — as a cult.
There’s some truth to that assessment.
The fervor with which Trump’s supporters defend all of his most heinous actions and policies is dumbfounding. To those of us who see what’s happening and the road he’s taking the U.S. down, it’s confusing that these people can’t seem to view it with a clear head.
Their judgement of his behaviour is clouded by emotion. In my experience, it’s usually obfuscated by fear.
Fear is an incredibly powerful motivator. The need for safety is one of our primary drivers — in Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs, safety is second only to physiological needs like water and food.
It’s no surprise that insecurity sends some people into a complete spiral. And I’m not talking about just personal insecurity, like in one’s appearance, reputation or attachments — I’m talking about insecurity about their physical needs being met.
People are afraid of losing their homes. They’re worried about financial struggles and finding or keeping jobs, worried about being targeted or losing support systems, and worried about the health and wellbeing of loved ones.
Some people are worried about losing familiarity in their communities, particularly if they have a fear of ‘Others.’ They’re uncomfortable with changes in society and culture that they don’t understand, fearing Pride flags and demographic shifts in their neighbourhood.
Some of them buy into the idea of LGBTQ+ people being a physical threat to their kids’ safety, for example.
There are a staggering number of posts online from Canadians expressing worry over how many people from India are immigrating to our country.
It’s just plain racism. Come on, guys, do better.
In the case of immigrants, they often tie those fears to other arguments as a way to appear less racially motivated — they make it out to be about housing shortages or jobs.
Of course we know that’s not actually the case. Immigration is not the reason the housing market is ridiculous; it’s the cost of housing that’s absolutely bonkers. There are a lot of reasons for this, but most of it comes down to corporations buying up rental properties, inflation, and zoning issues. It’s linked more heavily to the 2008 housing crash than current immigration trends.
In fact, in the United States a lot of construction labour is performed by immigrant workers, so Trump’s mass kidnapping and anti-immigration policies will make the housing crisis a lot worse.
If you’re worried about supply and demand, then gutting the construction industry is not going to help.
And as for jobs, again, don’t blame immigrants for taking jobs away from you. Immigrant workers are a boon to the economy, and rarely displace native-born workers from salaried positions.
In fact, non-partisan research suggests that the opposite is true. They generally don’t compete for the same jobs, and overall average wages tend to increase when immigrant employment is high. Typically, immigrant workers gravitate towards jobs that free up time and improve productivity for other employees.
It’s like when you hire someone to help clean your house — you suddenly have more time to spend on other errands and leisure activities rather than having chores eat up your days off.
You have more hours in the day to work with, so you get more done and you’re less stressed.
If a doctor hires a scribe to handle their paperwork, they can focus more on patient care. More patients can be seen, and they get more focused attention from their physician. Everybody wins.
But a lot of MAGA people either don’t know these facts, or don’t believe them. All they know is that they’ve been sold on the idea that immigrants are the reason they’re struggling, and Trump promised to get rid of the immigrants.
They’re afraid, they’ve been told the problem is simple, and they’ve been promised that the solution is just as easy.
Unfortunately neither of those things are accurate.
Another major need on Maslow’s Heirarchy is social interaction.
Humans are social animals, and we benefit greatly from connections and building relationships. We are at our healthiest when we belong to strong, mutually beneficial communities that care for their members without discrimination.
Part of maintaining healthy connections is something called empathy. It’s the ability to understand, share, and respond to the feelings and perspectives of other people. This is absolutely crucial when you’re forming bonds and relationships with others.
Our capacity for empathy is what drives us to reach out when someone we know loses a family member; it makes us want to offer comfort, support, and assistance to others in need.
It’s a basic foundation of human society, and we would never have become the dominant species on our planet without it. If we were all loners living on an ‘every man for himself’ ideology, we would never have congregated into towns and cities to begin with.
It just wouldn’t be possible. There’s a reason that some anthropologists point to the first evidence of medical care — a healed broken leg bone in early human ancestors — as the first evidence of true civilization.
Instead of leaving an injured person to die, their community cared for them until they recovered.
Note: this claim is often attributed to the late Dr. Margaret Mead, but there’s little evidence she actually said it. Nevertheless, it’s a compelling point that I agree with and stand by.
We see this same behaviour in wolves and other pack animals in the wild — they support one another for mutual gain and to help each other survive.
It’s a fundamental instinct in humans to care for their own. Unfortunately, this trait can be hijacked.
We all know that one guy who insists that as long as he and his nuclear family members are fine, everybody else around them can get bent. Intensely tribalistic, ruthless, and disinterested in being part of a wider community.
This person lacks empathy for strangers and has no inclination to reach out and offer support when hearing about the suffering of other people who aren’t in his direct sphere of concern.
He votes based on what will materially benefit him — at least, what he thinks will benefit him — and he only realizes the potential for harm when he is personally and directly impacted by it.
There’s a reason a lot of MAGA supporting farmers only got angry when they were targeted with a loss of subsidies and their workers started fleeing for fear of deportation.
Now, am I saying that all MAGA Conservatives are incapable of empathizing? Of course not — that’s a very specific trait that isn’t very common at all. What I am saying is that a lot of Conservatives struggle to empathize with strangers.
They have plenty of empathy for their own loved ones. Just not for yours.
Earlier I mentioned that the MAGA movement can be compared to a cult.
There are a lot of similarities between the ideological fanaticism we see from extreme right-wing Trump supporters and from ‘True Believers’ of various cults throughout history — the belief that the leader can do no wrong, and must be trusted regardless of the evidence against them.
This is not a natural obeisance. It’s a conditioned response. In our modern world, you don’t need to be confined to a compound away from everyone else to be locked in to this kind of isolated group; an online echo chamber works just as well.
In a traditional cult there are methods of thought control which are used to instill beliefs and worldviews in their members, and to ensure continued participation. Psychologists and other experts in cult indoctrination use a set of criteria known as the BITE model to describe these techniques.
BITE stands for Behaviour, Information, Thought and Emotion, with each representating a form of control that cult leaders use to maintain cohesion among their followers.
Cults and hate groups have historically used the same basic models and recruitment techniques, but in the modern day with the advent of the internet and social media, tactics of control have decentralized.
While Trump currently stands as the head of the snake for the MAGA movement and other far-right Conservatives, there is less of a clearly defined leadership structure as you used to see. There’s a lot more deniability and much less direct interaction.
The internet is a ridiculously powerful tool for radicalizing people. If you want to learn more, I heartily recommend the Alt-Right Playbook series by Ian Danskin — particularly his video essay titled ‘How to Radicalize a Normie.’ Link here!
Also — while I’m focusing on the far-right in this article, echo chambers are not a right-wing phenomenon. Left-wing echo chambers exist, too. They can be just as problematic.
In all cases, though, the potential for recruitment still heavily relies on the very human need for connection and the fear of isolation.
Isolated, lonely, frightened people are very easy to scoop up and many are easily convinced of whatever they need to believe to gain acceptance. They’ll believe whatever they have to believe, say what they need to say, and do what they need to do to belong.
Failing to belong means that they lose their community. That insecurity is terrifying.
Remember how we talked about the Heirarchy of Needs? A feeling of safety and social connections are extremely important. The feeling of being part of a unit, having an identity tied to your group is intoxicating and it can overwhelm a lot of doubt.
If your group is selling you easy, infinitely repeatable slogans as solutions to very complex problems, it’s easy to parrot their words and fall into the same thought patterns. It’s simple to chant ‘illegal immigrants steal our jobs.’
If other groups require you to actually study and learn about complex systemic issues in order to understand what they’re talking about, it’s a lot less appealing. ‘Illegal immigrants steal our jobs’ is easier to remember than ‘undocumented immigrants offer substantial contributions to the economy and also prop up our system of social security while gaining nothing from it.’
Which phrase is more succinct? Which sticks in your head the longest? Which, at face value, makes more sense if you don’t know the full context of statistics and data?
I’m not calling MAGA supporters stupid. I don’t believe that most of them are incapable of doing the work, I’m saying that most of them won’t bother — not when there’s an easy “solution” that requires no effort on their part.
I’m saying they’re lazy.
This is why the internet meme culture has become a highly effective form of propaganda. Short, quippy, funny, easy to repost and share all over social media.
I’m guilty of taking part in that, too; most of us are.
Most MAGA supporting far-right Conservatives fall into the trap of assuming that if a concept can’t be explained to them like they’re five, than the other person doesn’t truly understand it and shouldn’t be listened to.
And even if they do start to understand your point, if it conflicts with their overall worldview and beliefs they’re likely going to become extremely uncomfortable and back out of the conversation without engaging with it.
That’s called cognitive dissonance, and it’s a big part of the power of Groupthink.
Hold two conflicting beliefs, become uncomfortable, retreat from the discomfort and fall back on the group’s belief system to comfort yourself. This reinforces your connection to the group and alienates you from the outsider who made you uncomfortable.
It’s more fun to ‘own the libs’ than to have a nuanced discussion with them about your differences of opinion.
Part of right-wing meme culture involves caricature.
The image of a feminist — or a ‘Woke’ lefty in general — in Conservative memes is an overweight woman with blue-dyed hair, tattoos and piercings and ill-fitting clothes. She’s chronically unhappy, making illogical demands and screaming shrilly at men who are just minding their own business.
She’s basically portrayed as a clown; somebody you don’t need to listen to because they exist to be figures of mockery.
It’s very easy to plug any overly simplified and highly-slanted phrasing you want into her speech bubble to make her look unreasonable and silly. And in sharing said meme, you can offer a simple, short, mocking response that derails any nuanced discussion about human rights or progressive politics.
This has gone so far as to step out of the internet and into reality. Anyone — especially young white women — who dares to dye their hair blue can become a target for harassment.
This exemplifies the argument I’ve been making. For many MAGA supporters, it’s not about factual reality. They don’t need facts. They have opinions and ideology, and they expect you to conform to their worldview.
If you fail to do so, you become ‘cringe’ and a figure of ridicule.
Even if someone manages to work through that cognitive dissonance we talked about, leaving the MAGA side of the aisle might still be difficult.
It can be difficult because of the Sunk Cost fallacy — it’s too hard to admit mistakes and change belief systems because of a combination of public humiliation and having spent too much time and money to admit defeat.
It’s hard to realize you got something this big wrong, and even harder to admit it out loud.
You can’t argue these people out of their position with facts, because — as Ben Shapiro so often says — facts don’t care about your feelings, and their feelings are the whole reason they believe what they do.
Again, it’s not about factual reality, it’s about fear and a need for connection.
In my opinion, based on my experience and what I’ve seen and heard from my MAGA relatives and my research, fanatical Trump supporters are driven by fear.
Fear of difference, fear of change, fear of being responsible for others or fear of what others will do to them. Fear of being alone. Fear of their needs not being met.
They won’t find salvation for their fears in the far-right. Their fears are based in reality; the solutions they’re being sold are not. It’s perfectly rational to be afraid of losing your job, struggling to make ends meet and being unable to buy a home.
But the blame for those fears does not rest on the shoulders of immigrants.
The real solutions are far more complex and nuanced than they know.
Because of the way the MAGA movement operates, those of us who live in reality can’t pull them out into the light — they have to choose that for themselves.
I sincerely hope they do.
Solidarity wins.
I keep hoping that some people, particularly those on the fringes of the Maga cult, can be saved. Your piece makes me feel this is less likely than I hope, because you make a lot of sense.
You went deep on this one. This would make an interesting thesis for someone to pick up. I've always thought that people who lean more conservative are very fearful and open to blaming others. You've taken it deeper. Food for thought. Thank you for this.