The Dopamine of Politics: Trump Rallies

Many people are asking why the Ol’ Pussy Grabber holds superspreader events and why people attend them? After all, he is putting everyone involved at risk for a nasty covfefevirus infection, and attendees are taking their life into their hands when they do. So, what’s the motivation? Why do they do it? What could possibly overcome these life threatening risks?

Before we get to the main reason, we should note that one reason the Ol’ Pussy Grabber holds his rallies is quite practical. He is so impoverished that he cannot afford advertising and must rely on the free press that carpet bombing the country with his free-associating rants of grievance and self-indulgence garners.

Summary of the Reward and Liking Systems

We all know that reinforcement and punishment of behavior changes the likelihood of that behavior occurring because we all remember our Psych 101 course, seeing it in popular media, and reading Ye Olde Blogge. But, we’re not likely to know how the system works, and it turns out it is both interesting and useful to know.

In the nuttiest of shells — which, BTW, rules out peanuts because not a nut and walnuts because I don’t like them even though they resemble a brain in the skull — the reward system compels behavior that is likely to result in a reward, well, duh, and the liking system delivers the reward of an naturally occurring opioid making it as addicting as heroin and other opioids.

Trump Rallies

Trump’s Motivation

It turns out that dopamine and opioids are so powerful of a one-two reinforcing punch that we pretty quickly associate the events that are occurring just before the reward gets there so we can anticipate the reward. Anticipation of the reward is in itself a pleasurable reward. If the reward is larger than anticipated, then our dopamine neurons are really really excited and want more more more! If the reward is smaller, then inhibited and disappointment ensues.

We all know that the Ol’ Pussy Grabber is a narcissist and NEEDS the adulation of others either real or imagined. He needs to be adored. To put it in terms of the reward and liking systems: When the crowds as this rallies are cheering and chanting, he is basking in a flood of opioids. It is pleasurable to him. He is euphoric.

He has quickly figured out that rallies usually have people adoring him. He has figured out which lines trigger the applause, the cheers, and the chants and he uses them to deliver his regime of opiates just like a heroin addict mainlines black tar.

Just watch some of these clips from some of the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s most recent rallies in which the crowd chants, “Lock her up,” about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and listen for his response. He kind of mumbles, “Lock her…” as if he is just understanding what they’re saying and then kind of laughs and says, “Lock ’em all up.” It’s that laugh that tells you the opioids have been delivered. He gets a kick out of it.

Trump says "lock them all up" as his fans direct "lock her up!" chants toward Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was the victim of a kidnapping/assassination plot recently hatched by Trump supporters pic.twitter.com/8a41Ca07FX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 17, 2020

The Ol’ Pussy Grabber is panicked. He is losing. He’s standing at the edge of the abyss. If he loses, terrible things happen. It is the ultimate narcissistic wound. It is worse than going to prison — which he could never accept as possible. He can cognitively acknowledge the possibility, but he knows he can beat the rap and an exception will be made for him. No, he fears the soul crushing amorphous nameless results of losing on the biggest stage the world has ever seen. It will be the mother of all narcissistic wounds.

To salve those wounds, to ease the pain of the prospect of losing, he seeks the greatest pleasure he has ever known: standing before a cheering adoring crowd.

His reward system compels him against all odds, sense, and reason to hold these superspreader events. He can no more resist the siren call of the rally than the OCD cleaner can resist cleaning for twelve hours a day. The compulsion is the same. When the anxiety of losing comes up, he must relieve it, so he holds a rally. He rides the wave opioid euphoria, but feels the compulsion to do another because dopamine!

Dopamine drives him to the rally, but he stays for the opiates.

MAGAs Motivation

Way back in June, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber held the first, maybe, superspreader event of the 2020 campaign. And, other than killing Herman Cain, it is was a flop. Poorly attended. Listless crowd. Furious Trump.

The superspreader event flopped for several reasons. Tik-Tok and K-pop fans claimed tickets but didn’t attend and fear of #COVID19 which was raging unchecked in the nation and began spiking in Tulsa that week.

The prospects of getting his frequent hits of opiates and stimulating his reward circuit were looking pretty dim. If he had to rely on calling in to Fox News shows, he probably was not going to make it through the campaign. Ergo presto sum cum loud, he upped his war on mask wearing, claimed the end of the pandemic was in sight, and that it wasn’t as serious as claimed. This strategy served to help open the economy, get children returned to schools, and put butts in the seats at his superspreader events.

Few things match the thrill of sitting in a packed stadium or auditorium and cheering for the home team! Participating in events helps us feel connected to the larger community and solidifies our identity as belonging to the ingroup or it crowd. In other words, it reinforces our identity, beliefs, and membership in a group. And, reinforcement means dopamine. They are pursuing the reward that belonging to a ingroup brings.

Cheering and chanting deliver the opiates. You begin to lose your individual identity and take on that of the mob. It is powerful. It is intoxicating. It sweeps you away into a timeless eternal moment where nothing else matters and everything seems possible.

MAGAs are compelled to attend a superspreader event because of dopamine. They are seeking rewards for their truly deplorable behavior. Deep down inside, they know it is deplorable and they are ashamed. Rather than face their despicable actions, they engage in cognitive dissonance — the greater the disparity between belief and behavior, the more cognitive dissonance is needed, and the stronger the commitment to the erroneous belief or behavior. MAGAs need their behavior to be rewarded, so they got to these superspreader events. Once there, they experience the euphoria of the event and look for another to attend.

This insidious cycle of compelled behavior based in the dopamine-fueled reward system and pleasure in participating based in the opioid-fueled liking system keeps the Ol’ Pussy Grabber holding his superspreader events, and MAGAs attending. That these two systems can overcome the life threatening risk of contracting the covfefevirus shows you just how powerful they are.

Image Attribution

The image is from Michael Candelor’s Flickr account. It is licensed as Attribution 2.0 Generic.