From deplorables to avengers, how Donald Trump supporters came through for him — and for each other

In his post-election analysis, FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver talked about the cultural disconnect of journalists who wrote profiles of Donald Trump supporters that portrayed them as “exotic creatures in Youngstown, Ohio, diners.”
To which Trump supporters might reply “if only.”
Rather than exotic creatures, Trump supporters have more often been described as cult members and know-nothings, from Hillary Clinton calling them “deplorables” to Joe Biden’s “garbage” gaffe. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked earlier this year, “How stupid would you have to be?” to vote for Trump. More recently, like the candidate himself, Trump supporters have been called fascists.
Many wore the insults as a badge of honor — you can buy “deplorable garbage” merchandise. Garbage bags became Halloween costumes, and the insults provided a photo op for Trump when he took a ride in a garbage truck.
There was also anger underneath the defiance and the joking, an anger that boiled over at the polls on Tuesday, and it is fitting that many on social media have described Trump and his team as “the avengers,” as in the Marvel movies. From the point of Team Trump, there was much avenging to do, including the criminal prosecution of Trump, which many of his supporters see as political persecution — not to mention two assassination attempts.
In the robust turnout for Trump, don’t discount payback for the years of insults. With apologies to William Congreve, hell hath no fury like a voter scorned. And some Democrats have realized this, too. As one frustrated commentator said Wednesday of the results: “Here’s an idea — how about we stop demonizing half the country?”
Personal insults are not a new development in the American political process; they have been hurled since the time of the Founding Fathers and were much more colorful in centuries past. (Credit Horace Greeley with calling Lewis Cass, the Democratic candidate for president in 1848, “pot-bellied,” “mutton-headed” and “cucumber-soled.”) Trump himself is a master of the personal insult and can barely get through a week without coining a new one.
In today’s climate, voters almost expect this kind of talk from their politicians, said Peter Loge, director of the School of Media & Public Affairs at The George Washington University.
“Vitriol and insults have always been a part of American political rhetoric. Part of it is expressing outrage that voters feel,” Loge told me.
“If I, as a voter, am angry, I want to know that you, as my candidate, are also angry. Don’t condescend to me; don’t say, ‘I understand your anger.’ Show your anger. That said, I think everybody would like to get back to a politics that’s just less awful.”
Loge added, “Inevitably, we all say, ‘It’s not my fault we’re awful. It’s other people.’ And they say, ‘Well, we’re only awful because you’re awful’ … it’s like you’ve got 6-year-old twins in the back of the station wagon. … I think how we solve it is by voting for candidates who behave like grown-ups.”
There were instances of this in recent months, he said, noting the Maryland Senate race between Democrat Angela Alsobrooks and Republican Larry Hogan, and also the vice presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz. “Walz’s relationship to facts was somewhat casual, but it was also … boring,” Loge said. “You had two boring guys trying to not break things and just sound like reasonable people, and I think, by and large, they did.”
The degree to which insults flowed downstream from a candidate to his supporters, however, has been remarkable throughout Trump’s multiple campaigns. From one former journalist writing on X, “If you vote for Trump, you’re as terrible a person as he is” to those on the platform today using expletives to describe Trump voters, there seems to be an unprecedented loathing for not just the president-elect, but also his supporters — which, it should be noted, this week comprised a comfortable majority of the electorate.
While there was, no doubt, some residue of misogyny and racism present in the election outcome, more than 72 million Americans voted for Trump — many of them Black and Latino, many of them women, some of them urban. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin told CNN that Trump did not win with just the MAGA vote, but with middle America. “The power of the middle is unbelievable,” Manchin said. Analysts were stunned by the number of independent voters Trump won, especially in Georgia.
Harris did have an edge over Trump among voters with college degrees, in keeping with research that shows highly educated voters trend toward Democrats. But that is additional evidence that the Democratic Party is now seen as the “party of the elite,” and it’s notable that Trump ally Elon Musk — one of his avengers, and no slouch in the intellect department — has recently challenged the importance of a college degree.
“For decades, Democratic messaging has sounded like ‘vote for us, we’re smarter than you.’ And that’s a terrible message, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is, no, you’re probably not smarter than them,” Loge said. “You got lucky and got a position where you have time to ponder things. You have time on the weekend to read The Atlantic. If you’ve got three kids and two jobs, you don’t have time to sit and read The Atlantic.”
Since 2016, there has been a pervasive whiff of disdain for Trump voters that emanates from media and the Democratic Party. It’s hard to see how either will win, or recover, their support without a sustained and authentic outreach that sees this population as valued Americans, not dim-witted obstacles to power. As Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland has said, “You can’t love your country if you hate half the people in it.” The corollary to that, it appears, is that you can’t win elections either.