many explanations are suggested for the sequel rise of Donald Trump, and the steadfastness of his support, even as the outrages and criminal charges pile up. Some of these explanations are powerful. But there’s one I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere, which I believe may be the most important: Trump is king of the extrinsic.
Some psychologists believe that our values tend to cluster around certain poles, described as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic”. People with a strong set of intrinsic values are prone to empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in universal rights and equality, and protective of other people and the living world.
People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other peopleto act rude and aggressive and dismissive social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfactionstress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behavior.
Trump is an example of extrinsic values. From the tower that bears his name in golden letters to his gross overstating his wealth; from his endless ramblings about “winners” and “losers” to his reported habit of cheat at golf; from its extreme objectification of women, incl his own daughterto his obsession with the size of his hands; from his rejection of public service, human rights and environmental protection to his extreme dissatisfaction and anger, unabated even when he was president of the United States, Trump, perhaps more than any other public figure in recent history, is a walking, talking monument to extrinsic values.
We are not born with our values. They are shaped by the cues and reactions we receive from other people and the prevailing morals of our society. They are also formed by the political environment we inhabit If people live under a brutal and oppressive political system, they tend to normalize and internalize it, absorb its dominant claims and translate them into extrinsic values. This in turn allows an even crueler and more intrusive political system to develop.
If, on the other hand, people live in a country in which no one becomes destitute, in which social norms are characterized by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from lack and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end. This process is known as policy feedback, or the “‘values rattle“. The value chain operates on a social and individual level: a strong set of extrinsic values often develops as a result of uncertainty and unmet needs. These extrinsic values then generate further uncertainty and unmet needs.
Since Ronald Reagan came to power, on a platform that ensured that society was sharply divided into “winners” and “losers”, and more and more people, without public provision, were allowed to fall through the cracks, American politics has become fertile ground for extrinsic values. Since Democratic presidents, following Reagan, have embraced most of the tenets of neoliberalism, the ratchet has hardly been reversed. The appeal to extrinsic values by the Democrats, Labor and other once progressive parties is always self-defeating. Research shows that the further towards the extrinsic end of the spectrum people travel, the more likely they are to vote for a right-wing party.
But the shift goes deeper than politics. For more than a century, the US, more than most nations, has worshiped extrinsic values: the American dream is a dream of acquiring wealth, spending it conspicuously, and escaping the constraints of other people’s needs and demands. This is accompanied in politics and in popular culture by toxic myths about failure and success: wealth is the goal, regardless of how it is obtained. The ubiquity of advertising, the commercialization of society and the rise of consumerism, along with the media’s obsession with fame and fashion, reinforce this story. The marketing of insecurity, especially about physical appearance, and the manufacture of unmet needs digs holes in our psyche that we can try to fill with money, fame or power. For decades, the dominant cultural themes in the US – and in many other nations – functioned as an almost perfect hotbed of extrinsic values.
A classic sign of this shift is the individuation of blame. On both sides of the Atlantic it now takes extreme forms. Among the criminal law bill now going through parliament, people who fall asleep could be jailed or fined up to £2,500 if they are deemed to be causing a “nuisance” or “damage”. According to section 61 of the bill, “harm” includes smelling bad. It’s hard to know where to start with this. If someone had £2,500 to spare, they wouldn’t be on the street. The government proposes to provide prison cells for rough sleepers, but not homes. Perhaps most importantly, people are blamed and criminalized for their own poverty, which in many cases will be caused by government policy.
We are talking about society’s rightward journey. We talk about polarization and division. We talk about isolation and the mental health crisis. But underlying these trends is a shift in values. This is the cause of many of our dysfunctions; the rest are symptoms.
When a society values status, money, power and dominance, it is bound to cause frustration. It is mathematically impossible for everyone to be number one. The more the economic elite grab, the more everyone has to lose. Someone has to be blamed for the subsequent disappointment. In a culture that worships winners, it can’t be them. It must be those evil people who pursue a kinder world, in which wealth is distributed, no one is forgotten and communities and the living planet are protected. Those who have developed a strong set of extrinsic values will vote for the person who represents them, the person who has what they want. Trump. And where the US goes, the rest of us follow.
Trump might win again – God help us if he does. If so, his victory will not be due only to the racial resentment of aging white men, or to his weaponization of culture wars or to algorithms and echo chambers, important as these factors are. It will also be the result of values that are so deeply embedded that we forget they are there.
