Over a decade, I’ve written 3.2 zillion words trying to explain Trump voters. A third of the electorate — okay, I get it, maybe. But half?
Recently I came upon an article in Skeptical Inquirer, about whether subliminal cues can really influence behavior. A very substantive science-based piece. Some time back there was a moral panic over this — could subliminal messages, particularly in ads, sway us?
This concerns, for example, an image or message flashed so fleetingly one doesn’t consciously register it. But the unconscious does.
Freud, the founder of modern psychology, put great emphasis on the unconscious, seeing much of our behavior rooted there. Like the “Oedipus Complex” — men unconsciously lusting for their mothers. Largely nonsense; it’s now widely believed Freud was blowing smoke about such stuff.
Yet it is true that a lot of our mental work is done unconsciously, with one’s conscious thinking mind like the tip of an iceberg. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, in The Righteous Mind, likened the conscious self to a rider on an elephant, which is the unconscious. The rider thinks they’re guiding the beast; but mostly it’s going where it wants, and the rider’s job is mainly to make up explanations.
And there’s much scientific evidence for subliminal effects. For example, “priming” or “anchoring.” Make a statement with a number in it. Then ask the subject to estimate some completely unrelated quantity. They tend to estimate higher if the previously quoted number was big rather than small, even though it was strictly irrelevant. It nevertheless primes the subject unconsciously to think in bigger terms.
I particularly noted the article’s discussion of the familiarity effect, not previously on my radar. “Familiarity breeds contempt” is an old saw. Turns out the opposite is true, based again on scientific experiments. Show someone a group of faces — nothing more. Then, in a wholly different context, ask them to judge something between two people — one whose face was in the group, and one not. They tend to instinctively favor the one whose face they’d seen before. Liking that person more, trusting them more. Just that tiny bit of familiarity, below the level of conscious awareness, influences their judgement.
The article observes that when the Eiffel Tower was built, many French thought it ugly and wanted its removal. But over time the familiarity effect kicked in, and with continued exposure to the tower, they grew to love it.
The relevance to Trump support should be obvious. How can so many people disregard so much negative stuff about him? That’s trumped by the familiarity effect. He’s “the devil you know.” In fact, nobody in U.S. history has ever so dominated the public landscape; an unprecedented degree of familiarity. It overwhelmed Harris’s.
He’s always acted as if any attention, no matter whether positive or negative, helps him. Maybe he was on to something.
This factor works in tandem with Americans today having decreased engagement with actual news. A recent poll indicated only 38% pay much attention to it. Most would rather scroll Tiktok. But Trump is so relentlessly visible that he breaks through and people can’t avoid seeing him. Making him so very familiar.
That’s why he can get away with, for example, his Big Bad Bill depriving millions of health care. That’s news that doesn’t register with them. And lacking such clear grounds for evaluating Trump, the familiarity effect has greater scope to operate in their heads. A subliminal factor causing many to support him, without even truly realizing why they do.
He’s the Eiffel Tower of American politics.
The Rational Pessimist 
