The post you are reporting:
Let us overthrow the whole capitalist system one cut and past at a time your Grace?
When will Donald Trump’s supporters finally peel off? Liberals are now hoping his campaign’s apparent collusion with Russia in last year’s election will do the trick. But many Trump voters are more than just voters. They are political fans — a poorly understood modern phenomenon. Political fans reason a lot like sports or music fans, explains Cornel Sandvoss, professor of media and journalism at the UK’s Huddersfield University.
Political fandom isn’t entirely new. Margaret Thatcher had her fan base and, in 1994, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy created a party, Forza Italia, named after a football supporters’ chant. His candidates even wore Italy’s blue football shirts.
But social media gave political fandom a lift. Now supporters have spaces to express themselves, away from old po-faced wannabe-neutral political media. Partisans gather on social media to root for their candidate in a debate, almost as if it were a boxing match. Elections look ever more like sporting spectacles. No wonder that during last autumn’s US presidential “horse race”, viewing figures for gridiron’s National Football League fell: many fans had found a new sport. Trump, who is steeped in American sports, understands the crossover with politics. Recall the video he tweeted in which he appears as a wrestler pummelling the CNN logo.
Fandom works best in two-party political systems such as the US or UK, because these mimic the us-versus-them format of sports. (Coalition politics discourages fandom, because teams don’t really play against each other.) In an us-versus-them game, you can be not just a fan but an “anti-fan”, who roots against a candidate. Most voters in the US presidential election were above all anti-fans of the other party’s candidate.
American phenomena usually spread to the UK first. In a YouGov poll of Conservative voters in June’s British elections, a combined 30 per cent described their prime motivation as “anti-Labour” or against Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Only 5 per cent said they had made a positive choice for Conservative leader Theresa May. Meanwhile, Corbynistas have a unique form of anti-fandom: their enemy-in-chief is their own party’s ex-leader Tony Blair.
Fandom gives people an identity. Sandvoss says this matters particularly as traditional sources of identity are fading: more and more adults aren’t married, don’t identify with their job, and don’t have a clear economic class, religion or trade union. Many fill that vacuum by being fans, whether it’s of Trump, the Yankees or Apple.
A child uses a teddy bear as a “transitional space” between himself and the world, said the psychoanalyst DW Winnicott. For political fans, says Sandvoss, the candidate is their teddy bear — the object that links them to the world. Sandvoss calls their fandom “libidinal-narcissistic”. The candidate’s job is to express the fans’ identity.
Fandom is also about belonging. Political fans gather at their candidate’s events amid a community of fellow fans (whom they often call “the people”). Many Trumpsters wear uniforms of “made in China” team merchandise, just like US sports fans. In the UK, Corbyn’s impromptu rally at last month’s Glastonbury music festival was an event unprecedented in British political history.
Like music fans, political fans prefer heroes with star quality. They rarely respond to parties, or to uncharismatic politicians such as Hillary Clinton, François Hollande and May. Someone like George HW Bush probably couldn’t get elected today.
Some Trumpsters and Corbynistas care about changing government policy: about building Trump’s wall, or nationalising British industries. But for most political fans, policy is secondary. Joan C Williams, author of White Working Class, explains: “You don’t go, ‘I like the Giants because I think Timmy’s pitch is awesome.’ You go, ‘I like the Giants because I frigging love the Giants!’”
That’s why many Corbynistas waved away the question of his electability. What they cared about most was not remaking Britain, but finding an identity as fans. For similar reasons, last year’s referendum on Brexit largely ignored boring policy issues. Most voters simply chose a team. Only now are many Leave voters discovering that their vote probably entails leaving the single market, not to mention such obscure organisations as Euratom (Europe’s nuclear research programme) or Europe’s single aviation market.
The traditional rhetoric of fandom is life-long loyalty: “We’ll support you evermore.” Hardcore fans proudly stick with their team in adversity. When diehard Trumpsters are goaded to drop their man over mounting evidence of collusion with Russia, they think: not now when my team needs me most. Diehard fans perceive the world as fans. They cannot see their own team’s fouls, and so presume that referees are biased against them.
However, Sandvoss cautions, most fans are in fact casual supporters. The majority don’t go to games (or rallies), don’t buy the merchandise, and switch on only when their team is winning. Corbyn is now enjoying that effect, soaring in polls after beating expectations in the election.
But if their hero disappoints, casual fans will switch off (see Trump’s approval ratings) and find something else to support. The NFL football season starts in September.