Donald Trump will become the next president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2025. Although some have deluded themselves into thinking the contrary, there will be no deus ex machina moment to stop this from happening. As Trump and his representatives and agents have explicitly detailed and promised, on “day one” they will launch a political project that will cause severe harm to tens of millions of Americans and other people who live in this country. In the doublespeak and doublethink of autocrats and authoritarians, the Trumpists describe this project as “Making America Great Again.”
There are approximately 245 million voting-eligible people in the United States. In the 2024 election, approximately 77 million voted for Donald Trump and 75 million voted for Kamala Harris. The remaining 90 or so million did not vote in the general election.
To borrow from the truism and warning, one-third of the public decided to harm the other third while the remaining third looked on. Although many of them have tried to convince themselves that no such thing will happen, the two-thirds of the American voting public who directly supported Trump or who tacitly gave their support to him by not voting (or supporting some other candidate) will also be made to suffer both directly and indirectly from his administration’s policies.
To that point, during a Sunday interview on the venerable TV news program “Meet the Press,” Trump was direct as he told the host that his mass deportation plan will almost necessarily involve removing American citizens from the country as a form of human collateral damage.
As I write this, Alex Garland’s film “Civil War” is playing in the background on the television. As the “event” and “very important” movie of 2024 and these years of worsening democracy crisis and tearing at the seams of American society, it is on multiple times every day. Garland has made much better films such as “Annihilation.” For all of the obligatory fawning from the critics, “Civil War” is rather uninteresting and predictable and a reminder of far better films about journalists in a time of war and conflict such as “Salvador” and “The Killing Fields.” However, “Civil War” is redeemed by one scene where the character played by the always impressive Jesse Plemons is committing war crimes and then pauses to ask the protagonists, “What type of American are you?” Plemmon’s character then shoots “the wrong type” of American dead (the victim is from Hong Kong).
I do not believe that Garland’s “Civil War” will come to America — anytime soon. The film is a dramatic depiction and exaggeration of the decades of deep polarization, rage at the elites and “the system” that put Trump, as the country’s first elected authoritarian, back in the White House. I sincerely hope I am correct as there are many examples of societies across the world that have fallen apart far faster and more suddenly than the experts and other reasonable observers thought possible at the time. Collapse can happen that fast.
“I think our differences are not too far apart to find a healthy consensus again. We all have a harm-based moral mind, and we’re all concerned about protecting ourselves. One big problem is that we go about our political conversations the wrong way.”
As I asked in a previous essay here at Salon, Have the day-to-day relationships and shared sense of community, norms, reality and meaning that make a healthy society and democracy possible been broken beyond repair? Or are these divides greatly exaggerated and there is much more that ties the American people together than divides them and in the end that may be their salvation?
Dr. Kurt Gray is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. Dr. Gray’s findings have been featured in the New York Times, The Economist, Scientific American, Wired and NPR’s “Hidden Brain.” He is the co-author of the book “The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels and Why it Matters.” His new book is “Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground.”
In this conversation, Dr. Gray explains how white racial resentment drove support for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement — and how many liberals and progressives underestimate the power that white victimology and its fictions such as “reverse racism” hold for many white Americans. He also highlights how polarization and divides between conservatives and liberals reflect deeper differences in our understanding of the relationship between politics, public policy, harm and morality.
Gray shares how engaging in political conversations with Trump and MAGA voters to find “common ground” is not an act of surrender by Democrats, liberals, progressives and others who believe in democracy. Instead, such conversations and dialogue are an important way of humanizing and empathizing with our fellow Americans to try to find a healthy way forward as a society after such a historic and damaging presidential election.
This is the second part of a two-part conversation.
You are a social psychologist. What are you seeing in the Age of Trump and his return to the White House that the mainstream news media and political class are not — or perhaps even more pointedly are refusing to see or are in denial about?
I think many left-wing people, especially progressive academics, don’t fully appreciate just how much the racial justice movement has alienated some white Americans, particularly conservatives who see Black and white Americans as mostly equally vulnerable to harm. A study conducted right around the election found that one strong predictor of White Americans voting for Trump was their agreement with the statement, “People these days can’t speak their minds without someone accusing them of racism.”
“The human mind cannot help but focus most on our own feelings of suffering. Other people’s pain requires empathy and perspective-taking, but our own pain is obvious to us.”
There is ample evidence for racial bias in American institutions. A paper by my colleague Julian Rucker finds that people vastly overestimate how much progress society has made toward racial economic equality. But there is also ample evidence that people need to think of themselves as good people and that the world is just. So, when progressives argue that white people have achieved success because of unearned privileges or by capitalizing on evil institutions, they bristle.
White conservatives are especially likely to resent the accusation that they are privileged — even if it’s statistically true — because most of them don’t feel particularly privileged. Instead, they feel threatened. These feelings stem from both the present situation and fears about the future. The economic future of white men without college is continuing to look bleak, and soon enough, white people will be the minority in America. These trends cause further fear when people have the (erroneous) zero-sum mindset, where one group’s gain is another group’s loss.
One of the most important, yet neglected aspects of the Age of Trump and the decades that got us to this point is how conservatives and liberals think about and understand questions of pain and harm, care and concern in divergent ways. What do we know about this empirically?
Questions about pain are always complicated. The human mind cannot help but focus most on our own feelings of suffering. Other people’s pain requires empathy and perspective-taking, but our own pain is obvious to us. In fact, it’s impossible to ignore our own pain when it’s there. So, statements like “I feel your pain,” are in one sense the best way to showcase your empathy to someone you’re talking with — but things get very complicated when their “pain” is not physical suffering but instead their concern about some other person’s or group’s pain.
Because the pain of others is largely invisible to you, it’s very easy to disagree about which people are suffering, especially when we ourselves feel like we are suffering. Of course, statistics show that people from minoritized groups are more likely to suffer violence or misfortune, but when it comes to perceptions of other people’s pain, we are less swayed by statistics than by the stories we hear. If a conservative person hears a story on Fox News of a woman who deeply regrets her abortion, they will believe that pro-choice policies cause suffering.
What do we know about political personality types and their relationship to these understandings of pain and harm in terms of politics and society? More broadly, how different (or not) are conservatives and liberals in terms of their values?
It’s easy to assume that liberals and conservatives have deeply different values. Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind” goes further to argue that liberals and conservatives have different “moral foundations.” While it’s true that liberals and conservatives might use different keywords in their speeches (e.g., conservatives are more likely to emphasize “liberty”), many studies show that, if you go beyond this rhetoric, these differences in values largely disappear (e.g., liberals care deeply about the “liberty” of women when it comes to reproductive rights).
Beyond exaggerating liberal/conservative differences in values, these theories miss the deeper truth: all our moral judgments are grounded in concerns about harm. When we condemn a behavior, it’s because we see it as causing harm. When we condemn a person, it’s because we see them as harmful. Studies on moral cognition (what happens in people’s minds when they make moral judgments) support the idea that we all share a harm-based mind.
Although we might all agree that an act like abortion or immigration involves harm, the problem comes when we disagree about who the real victim is. These disagreements about the real victim drive moral disagreement. With immigration, conservatives worry about the US citizens harmed by cartel members who entered the country illegally. But liberals worry about the families fleeing violence who are separated from their children at the border.
In other research, we have shown that a lot of disagreement about hot-button issues comes down to how much you think people are (or are not) equally vulnerable to harm. Progressives tend to split the world into two camps, the vulnerable oppressed and their invulnerable oppressors, which are most determined by your social groups. On the other hand, conservatives tend to overlook group-based differences and see the world in terms of individuals who are all equally vulnerable to harm.
It’s these different “assumptions of vulnerability” that drive policy disagreements like affirmative action and Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter. If you see Black people as much more vulnerable to harm than the police, it makes sense that you would more exclusively emphasize their suffering. But if you perceive all people as equally capable of suffering, it makes more sense for you to support all lives matter.
I receive many emails from various civil society groups that want to bring Democrats, liberals, MAGA Trump voters, Republicans, and “conservatives” together to find common ground. As I see it, there is nothing to discuss. Trying to find compromise when the other side views politics and political life and society as a zero-sum game and in doing so rejects democracy and pluralism is an act of surrender.
I disagree that “coming together” is an act of surrender. America is a pluralistic democracy that requires civil conversation and working together to achieve common aims. It’s fair to argue that some elites have demonstrated an obvious lack of moral character. It’s also clear that some elites are “conflict entrepreneurs” (in the words of journalist Amanda Ripley) who are trying to incite division to gain further influence and profit. But I cannot believe that most of the 77 million people who voted for Trump are themselves “fascists” who are unworthy of conversation.
Coming together for mutual understanding not only humanizes conservatives to liberals but also showcases how progressives are not the out-of-touch, America-hating, coastal-elites caricature painted by conservative pundits.
I get it: it’s easier to “bridge divides” when you’ve won, to be magnanimous when you don’t feel threatened. But I think the quest to understand the other side is essential for those who have lost too. I try to think of the individual human beings behind every vote, and I want to understand them. The vast majority of people are trying to protect themselves, their families, and their country from harm. And though I may not personally agree with the moral convictions of many people, I — like many people — would like a less divided country and I would like to feel less outraged.
Are we “the Americans” more alike than different in this era? Can those differences be handled constructively and perhaps even productively? Or are those differences so extreme that it will be very difficult if not impossible for us as a nation to find a healthy consensus again?
I think our differences are not too far apart to find a healthy consensus again. We all have a harm-based moral mind, and we’re all concerned about protecting ourselves. One big problem is that we go about our political conversations the wrong way. In one study, we ask Americans: Imagine you’re having a conversation with a political opponent; what would make you respect them?
Respondents usually mentioned “facts and statistics,” believing that conversations focused on facts would provide obvious common ground. But the problem is that facts no longer seem true — or at least seem easily summoned to support your partisan views.
Instead, our data show that telling personal stories, especially those focusing on personal experiences of harm, is one of the best ways to connect across our differences. By sharing stories of suffering and feelings of vulnerability, we can better see that our “opponent” is also motivated to protect themselves from harm, which helps us see them as more human. Sharing these stories also helps people on the other side see us as more human, and that’s an important step to move through a divisive election.
Looking forward, what are some concrete suggestions, what are some things that everyday people can do that will help to renew and heal our political community and civil society? Are our tribes fixed and immutable?
There are many organizations trying to make America more pluralistic and increase the civility of conversations about politics, race, and religion (many of these organizations are part of The New Pluralists and The Listen First Coalition). I’ve worked with one organization, Essential Partners, who are pioneers in this space and have learned from them three steps for having better conversations across differences. These steps spell CIV, the start of CIVil conversations.
C: Connect. Before you talk about politics just talk with someone about their lives. Or better yet, ask them questions. Especially deep questions about who they are and their hopes and dreams. Studies find that people actually like deep conversation with strangers, so feel empowered to ask someone about their first love or the last time they cried.
I: Invite. We all love to be invited to parties, but no one likes being forced. Same with discussions of politics. Don’t say “How could you vote like that??” Instead: “I know you voted differently from me and am really interested in understanding your thoughts and feelings — your story — behind your choice.”
V: Validate. It’s hard to share your beliefs with another person. It makes you vulnerable. So once someone shares their story with you, you should validate, by thanking them and trying to put their beliefs (and perceptions of harm) into your own words. This does not mean you must agree with them. You can stay fast to your convictions while trying to understand someone.
Across these CIV steps, the main goal is to strive for understanding. We all might try to win when it comes to elections, but in everyday conversations, striving to “win” is a recipe for losing — losing respect, losing friends and family. Instead, truly trying to understand someone is essential for renewing society—and for building diverse coalitions and creating allies to create change.
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