I Belong

I was standing in line to checkout at Sheetz this morning, buying a Celsius, when I heard the two guys in front of me talking. One had on a Steelers cap, the other wore a faded Carhartt jacket with paint stains on the sleeves. They were both probably in their forties.

“Did you hear about those Epstein emails that mention Trump that were released?” Steelers cap asked.

“Don’t really care,” Carhartt jacket said. “I just like being part of something liberals hate.”

“Yeah, I know.”

That was it. They paid and left. But that exchange has been rattling around in my head ever since, because I think it explains more about American politics right now than any analysis I’ve read in the past five years.

People keep trying to understand MAGA as a political movement with policy positions that people have carefully considered. They fact-check Trump’s statements. They point out contradictions. They write careful explainers about why his economic plans won’t work or his foreign policy is dangerous. And none of it matters because they are answering a question nobody asked.

“I just like being part of something.”

That’s not a policy position. That’s a human need. People want to belong to something. They want to feel like they’re part of a group that sees them, that values them, that fights for them. MAGA gives people that feeling in a way that nothing else in their lives does.

Think about what most Americans experience day to day. You go to work, do your job, come home. Maybe you’re on a neighborhood Facebook group or you go to church or you play softball on weekends. But a lot of people don’t have those things anymore. Churches are emptying out. Bowling leagues disappeared. The union hall closed. People feel disconnected and isolated, and they’re hungry for something that makes them feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

MAGA fills that hole. It gives you the hat, the flags, the rallies, the shared language, the common enemies. It tells you that you matter and that you’re not alone. When you put on that red cap, you’re not making a statement about Jeffrey Epstein or trade policy or anything specific. You’re saying to other people in red caps: I’m one of you.

And the guy at Sheetz said the quiet part out loud. He likes being part of something liberals hate. That’s the engine. It’s not about supporting Trump’s policies. It’s about being in opposition to people who they believe have looked down on them their entire lives.

When Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “deplorables” back in 2016, everyone said it was a huge mistake. A gaffe. Evidence of her elitism. But I don’t think that’s what happened. I think it did exactly what Trump needed it to do.

Getting called deplorable by someone you already think looks down on you isn’t an insult. It’s confirmation. It proves you were right about them. It proves they really do think they’re better than you. And suddenly everyone who felt that sting is connected. You’re all deplorables together. The establishment hates you, which means you must be doing something right.

Trump himself is perfect for this because he’s not respectable and he doesn’t pretend to be. Regular politicians put on a suit and use careful language and act like they’re above it all, and then they go do whatever benefits them and their donors. Trump shows up and says outrageous things and breaks every rule and gets indicted and keeps going like nothing happened. And his supporters love it because he’s not breaking their rules. He’s breaking the rules of people who never respected them anyway.

He’s like the kid in high school who talks back to the principal. You might not agree with everything he says, but you like that he’s saying it because somebody needs to tell these people off. When Trump gets in trouble, it just proves the system is rigged against people like him, which means it’s rigged against people like you.

This is why pointing out Trump’s lies or contradictions doesn’t work. This is why the Epstein emails don’t matter. You can show someone that Trump was connected to a convicted sex trafficker, that he said one thing in 2015 and the opposite thing in 2024, that his business practices were fraudulent, and they’ll just shrug. They’re not following his character or his policy positions like it’s a college course. They’re there for the feeling of being part of something that’s fighting back against people who look down on them.

I have family members who vote for Trump. When I try to talk to them about specific policies or ethical concerns, they get bored. Their eyes wander. They change the subject. But if I ask them how they feel about the media, or about being lectured to by people on the coasts, or about watching their town decline while politicians say everything is fine, suddenly they’re engaged. They’re angry, sure, but under the anger is something else. It’s the feeling that someone finally sees them.

The liberal response to all of this has been to double down on pointing out Trump’s flaws, as if the next scandal will finally be the one that breaks through. But every scandal just reinforces the bond. Every time the New York Times runs another exposé, every time MSNBC spends another hour dissecting Trump’s latest outrage, it confirms to his supporters that the people who hate them also hate him. That makes them like him more, not less.

You can’t fact-check belonging. You can’t write a white paper that makes someone feel less alone. If MAGA is giving people something they desperately need, something they can’t get anywhere else, then treating it like a normal political disagreement misses the whole point.

The guy in the Carhartt jacket at Sheetz doesn’t care about the Epstein emails. He cares about being part of something that pisses off the people who’ve made him feel small his entire life. And until someone offers him a better something to be part of, a place where he belongs that doesn’t require him to define himself in opposition to half the country, he’s staying right where he is.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

While millions of people are just looking for somewhere to belong, there are others who understand exactly how powerful that need is and are using it for their own purposes. They’re taking that genuine hunger for community and connection and channeling it toward dismantling the institutions that have held this country together for two and a half centuries. They’re normalizing the kind of authoritarian impulses that we used to think were un-American. And they’re doing it by telling people that destroying those institutions is the same thing as being seen and valued. The guy at Sheetz isn’t trying to end democracy. He just wants to belong to something. But the people leading the movement he’s joined have very different goals, and they’re counting on that need for belonging to be strong enough that people won’t notice where they’re being led…