Why So Many Americans Still Admire Trump

A Crisis of Morality, Identity, and Meaning and the Birth of Something New

“Trump isn’t an aberration. He is a mirror reflecting what American society has become.”

There is a question that has haunted many Americans for nearly a decade: How can tens of millions of people look at Donald Trump and not find him morally repellent? This is a man who lies routinely, boasts about assaulting women, surrounds himself with criminals, and treats the presidency like a personal brand. And yet, more than 70 million Americans voted for him in 2020. Many admire him. Some even worship him.

This essay is not about trying to prove that Trump is immoral. That much is obvious to anyone not completely immersed in partisan self-delusion. The real question is deeper and harder: What kind of country produces a man like Trump and elevates him to power? And more disturbingly, what kind of culture makes it possible for so many people to see him not as a danger, but as a savior?

To answer that, we have to go beyond politics. We have to look at the moral foundations of American life, and how they have cracked and crumbled under the pressure of individualism, consumerism, and disconnection. Trump, in the end, is not an anomaly. He is a mirror. He reflects back what American society has become.

A Moral Code Lost in Time

In ancient times, morality was not a personal lifestyle choice. It was something inherited. If you lived in Athens during the time of Aristotle, your identity and purpose were shaped by your role in society. You were not just a person. You were a soldier, a mother, a farmer, a teacher. Each role came with duties, standards, and ideals of excellence. Living a good life meant fulfilling your social role with dignity and skill. People didn’t need to invent meaning. They lived it.

This kind of morality was grounded in community. You existed not for yourself, but as part of a whole. There was a shared vision of the good life, and people judged each otherand themselves by how well they lived up to it. This did not disappear with time. Through the Middle Ages, religious traditions like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam carried forward similar ideas, tying virtue to compassion, obedience, and service to God and neighbor.

Even when life was hard, people knew why they were here. They had moral clarity. Their choices were embedded in a permanent order, not shaped by feelings or trends.

The Enlightenment and the Rise of the Autonomous Self

Then came the Enlightenment. After centuries of religious wars, European thinkers sought to escape the violence caused by competing moral dogmas. They decided to privatize morality. Instead of a shared vision of right and wrong, individuals would decide for themselves. Society would create neutral systems of law, democracy, and capitalism to keep people from killing each other, but moral meaning was now up to the individual.

This shift brought real gains. It helped build liberal democracies, science, and human rights. But it also tore up the roots of shared moral life. The Enlightenment replaced community with autonomy, tradition with reason, and meaning with preference.

Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who passed away in 2024, argued that this move left us adrift. In his classic book After Virtue, he said modern people still use moral language, words like virtue, character, and justice, but the concepts behind them have collapsed. Our moral discourse is like trying to do science after all the labs have burned down and the textbooks have been shredded. We can say “gravity,” but we don’t really know what it means.

As a result, people no longer ask “What is right?” They ask, “What feels right to me?” Morality becomes personal preference. This is what MacIntyre called emotivism: the idea that moral judgments are just expressions of emotion, not claims about truth.

A Culture of Preference, Not Principle

This moral shift fits perfectly with capitalism. In a market-driven society, people are trained to think like consumers. Every choice is a matter of taste. Buy this. Watch that. Swipe left. Swipe right. Our decisions are less about what is good and more about what we want.

Over time, this seeps into everything. Relationships, education, religion, even politics. We start choosing leaders the way we choose sneakers. Who looks tough? Who makes us feel powerful? Who validates our grievances?

This is where Trump comes in. He does not speak the language of morality. He never pretends to. He speaks the language of power, gain, and personal desire. He says what he wants, takes what he wants, and does not apologize. In a culture where morality has dissolved into preference, that kind of behavior no longer shocks. It fascinates. It attracts.

Many people admire Trump not in spite of his shamelessness, but because of it. He is the fantasy of the unbound self. No rules. No guilt. No obligations. Just winning.

Politics Without a Moral Core

The deeper tragedy is that without a shared moral standard, we have no way to settle disagreements. Arguments about right and wrong become pointless shouting matches. People stop listening. They dig into their own tribe. They judge others not by character, but by whether they agree with them politically.

Once that happens, politics becomes a holy war. Compromise becomes betrayal. Every election feels like a battle for survival. You cannot reason with your opponents because there is no common ground. You can only try to defeat them.

That’s exactly what Trump feeds on. He doesn’t argue. He attacks. He insults. He divides. And his supporters love it, because in their eyes, politics is no longer about ideas. It’s about identity. If Trump fights for them, then he must be good. If he offends their enemies, even better.

Even his corruption becomes part of his appeal. He doesn’t play by the rules, because the rules are for suckers. He doesn’t serve the office. He uses it. In a culture where institutions have lost moral authority, that looks like strength, not scandal.

The Failure of Moral Education

How did we get here? Partly through neglect. We stopped teaching moral philosophy. We stripped character education from schools. We told kids to “follow their dreams,” but didn’t help them figure out what dreams are worth following.

At the same time, we filled their lives with distraction, anxiety, and competition. We made everything a hustle. We gave them social media instead of real mentors. We taught them how to make a brand, but not how to build a life.

Without a moral compass, many young people drift into nihilism, cynicism, or blind tribalism. They become easy targets for manipulators. They are hungry for meaning, but they do not know how to recognize it when it appears.

As philosopher Ted Clayton observed, we now live in a fragmented society made up of individuals who have no shared vision of the common good. Most people no longer believe such a thing exists. They see each other as obstacles or allies, but not as fellow citizens with mutual obligations.

“From disillusionment, a new vision will emerge: Resourceism and participatory democracy, where power originates with the people, not spectacle.”

Trump’s Failure as Catalyst for a New System

Yet even in the wreckage, there may be the seeds of something new. Trump’s rise and eventual failure could mark a turning point. In many ways, he exposed the full extent of what is broken: a rigged economy, hollow institutions, and a political system captured by money and spectacle. His presidency laid bare the corruption and decay that many Americans have sensed but struggled to name.

Out of this disillusionment, some are looking beyond traditional capitalism and party politics altogether. One emerging vision is Resourceism: a socio-economic framework that replaces profit-driven systems with values grounded in sustainability, cooperation, and the equitable management of natural and technological resources. Instead of hoarding wealth and power, Resourceism proposes that we treat Earth's resources as a shared inheritance, managed for the public good.

Paired with participatory democracy, this new model envisions a society where people are not just voters but active decision-makers. It moves beyond broken top-down governance and invites communities to engage directly in shaping policy, resource distribution, and the design of public life. The aim is not just survival, but flourishing through shared responsibility, decentralized power, and environmental stewardship.

In this light, Trump may serve an unintended role. His grotesque example may become the warning that wakes us up. His failure may open the space for new thinking and radical reimagining. And the collapse of moral, political, and economic norms under his watch may force us to ask: What comes next?

For more on this emerging alternative, see Resourceism.com.

Conclusion: Trump as a Symptom, Not the Disease

Trump is not the cause of America’s moral decline. He is a product of it. He is what happens when a society loses its way and forgets how to tell virtue from vice.

If we want to move beyond him, we have to do more than vote differently. We have to live differently. We have to rebuild the moral foundation of our culture, one choice at a time, one life at a time.

As MacIntyre warned, the barbarians are not waiting at the gates. They are already ruling us. And our failure to see this is part of the problem.

But it is not too late to choose another path.

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Further Reading

• Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue

• Yuval Levin, A Time to Build

• David Brooks, The Road to Character

• Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind

• Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

• Michael Corthell, Right Thinking in a World Gone Mad

• Resourceism.com

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