So his ability to pull an audience can convince constituents that: “Oh, everybody thinks this way. Everybody is upset about trans people.” And what we know from social psychology is that most of us will go along with what we believe is the dominant belief system. The problem is that internet culture in our current media environment can mislead us about what the majority of people believe. It can shape our attitudes in a way that tells us that what we believe is normal by redefining what’s normal.
So I actually think he’s doing both simultaneously. I think he is following what a minority of people care a lot about, or are outraged about. He is using media, and especially social media, to do this direct appeal to the middle of the populace to say, “See, this is what everybody believes.” And then people will go, “Oh, well then I’m outraged too.”
I just find it really hard to believe that most people prior to four years ago were that upset about trans people in bathrooms. We had, in fact, had a decade prior to that where most people thought: “Oh yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s fine. Let’s put the signage up.”
Healy: Even Donald Trump, though. I remember that moment where he was asked, “Well, how would you feel about Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, using a bathroom?” And Donald Trump said, “Caitlyn Jenner can use whatever bathroom she wants.” I remember hearing from a lot of people after that, when I was a reporter, saying: “So where is Trump on this? Does Trump have hate in his heart for trans people, for L.G.B.T.Q. people?” Or is it all about that transactional Trump relationship with voters, that when the largest number of voters want a certain policy transaction from him, and it’s pretty easy for him to give it to them even if it means throwing trans people under the bus, he’ll do it. He’ll flip-flop on Caitlin Jenner and hand it over.
McMillan Cottom: Absolutely. I think it is a mistake for us to worry about the extent to which Donald Trump’s core beliefs shape his political behavior. He has been very clear that he engages in transactional politics. So on the one hand, I think that can be demoralizing. He’s just doing this because it is politically expedient. On the other hand, if we were to look for a little bit of hope, I would point to the fact that with transactions, you can then change people’s incentives, and that means that that can happen. It is just that right now, the tools to change them are undemocratically controlled and that control is concentrated with a very small group of people who right now share Donald Trump’s political beliefs.
