John Hibbing opens his new book about Trump aficionados with an amusing account of his attempt to blend in at a MAGA rally for the purposes of scientifically observing this group in its natural habitat. He chose to wear his American flag hat to better integrate into this strange new culture. But he opted to leave his Fukuyama reading at home on the hunch that few other attendees would be spending their pre-event downtime parsing the latest social science scholarship. This book, however, is not an ethnography in the mold of several recent outstanding qualitative studies of rank-and-file conservatives (Skocpol and Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, 2012; Cramer, The Politics of Resentment, 2016; Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land, 2018; and Muravchik and Shields, Trump’s Democrats, 2020). Hibbing’s valuable contribution is that of a dispassionate, data-driven behavioral political scientist.

Hibbing is not interested in reluctant or ambivalent Trump voters. His study is about the 17% of the country’s citizens who are devoted MAGA enthusiasts, or “venerators,” as measured by those who “strongly agreed” with this statement: “Trump is one of the very best presidents in the entire history of our country” (p. 93). Hibbing’s core argument is that Trump supporters’ worldview is grounded in an “insider” versus “outsider” dichotomy, and that they are motivated by a “securitarian” disposition focused on protecting the country’s cultural core—which they view as white, Christian, English speaking, and male—from outsiders bent on corrupting it. They understand their role to be one of defending their families, communities, and the country from those who would undermine the dominant culture.

The first half of the book explains why Trump venerators are not simply synonymous with the downscale Appalachian whites portrayed in Hillbilly Elegy. Some, of course, do fit that profile. But Hibbing insists that demographics are not destiny, and that these familiar and simplistic caricatures miss the centrality of the securitarian mindset. The popular conception of Trump supporters is that of aging whites who are undereducated, religious, largely rural, and economically insecure after suffering under free trade deals that left them behind. But some of those stereotypes are flat-out wrong (e.g., economic status), whereas others are reductionist to the point of being misleading or overlooking important nuances. For instance, a large percentage of Trump supporters are not religious, and Trump did better with young voters than did John McCain or Mitt Romney.

In this understanding, the central political divide in the United States—and, for that matter, globally—is ideological, albeit with a somewhat looser understanding of that term than political scientists usually employ (e.g., Converse, “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” 1964; Grossman and Hopkins, Asymmetric Politics, 2016). Securitarians are fundamentally focused on protecting insiders from outsider threats, whereas “unitarians” (a somewhat unfortunate term given the liberal religious denomination that goes by the same name) are oriented toward protecting outsiders from insider threats.

The second half of the book dives deeply into a national survey of Trump’s strongest supporters that Hibbing commissioned in 2019. Importantly, by the time the survey was conducted, Trump had been in office for more than two years. This timing allowed Hibbing to more easily distinguish between casual supporters, who may have seen Trump as the lesser of two evils in 2016, and true devotees who had seen his presidency in all its glory and wanted more. These respondents had witnessed the successes, such as the tax cut, strong economic figures, and two new Supreme Court justices. They had also endured the policy failures, ranging from an uncompleted border wall to the continued existence of Obamacare. And they had taken in at least some of the many outrages: defending white supremacists in Charlottesville, kids in cages, the Muslim ban, conditioning the release of foreign aid on Ukraine launching an investigation of Joe Biden, and so on. Of course, the term “COVID-19” did not yet exist, the Trump-incited January 6 insurrection at the Capitol still lay ahead, and half of the country’s impeachments were still to come. Even so, they had had plenty of time to see Trump in action and to draw conclusions.

Hibbing’s nuanced portrayal of Trump venerators will come as a surprise to many readers. They are, for example, not overly consumed by fear or anxiety. On the contrary, MAGA devotees are often happy warriors who find satisfaction and meaning in their noble work of protecting their country and culture. Nor is it financial anxiety or ingrained emotional negativity that explains Trump enthusiasts, but their views toward securing and maintaining the dominant culture. They are also not predisposed to fascism but rather to survivalist impulses. They are not necessarily convinced that they are superior to outsiders, only that they are different from those outsiders and that those differences must be maintained by keeping the outsiders on the outside. As Hibbing notes, “If the symbols of Hitler are death camps and Panzer tanks, the symbols of Trump are segregated communities and border walls” (p. 14). Trumpists do not want to take over the world so much as they want to keep it at arm’s length.

To maintain his neutral empiricism, Hibbing explicitly avoids labeling Trump supporters as racists, although he acknowledges that race is a central component in assessments of one’s status as an insider or outsider. Nonwhites can still be insiders, but their race is a mark against them that must be overcome by other factors that benefit the dominant culture.

Securitarians like cohesiveness in thought, action, and appearance. And they like political leaders who unapologetically recognize the same threats they perceive and respond to them with the appropriate vigilance and seriousness. This insight helps explain why previous Republican presidential nominees like McCain and Romney—despite ticking off most of the correct policy boxes—never fully connected with those who later swooned for Trump. McCain, after all, attacked members of the insider team like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and took his own supporters to task in the 2008 campaign when they suggested Barack Obama was an Arab or supported terrorists. That was not the behavior of a securitarian. Likewise, Romney was not really committed to the cause because he lacked the zeal and passion of those more adept at identifying threats. Cool restraint, reasonableness, and decency are not particularly admirable character traits when the putative barbarian hordes are at the door. Trump may mislead or get some facts wrong, but much more importantly for securitarians, he is quick to perceive threats from outsiders, be they Mexican immigrants, political correctness scolds, or Hillary Clinton.

Hibbing concludes by considering what the future may hold for the securitarian persuasion in American politics. The glass-half-empty takeaway is that the problems revealed by the Trump era are intractable and impenetrable. The latest think tank study on crime rates among immigrants, for instance, will have zero effect on securitarian thinking because the vigilance needed to guard against outside threats is a never-ending project: this mission will never be accomplished. That mindset has always been present in human societies, and it always will be. The glass-half-full assessment, however, is that, although securitarians will always be on high alert for outsider threats, their perceptions of who is an insider and who is an outsider are malleable. Hibbing notes that women, atheists, and gays, among others, are in the process of being folded into the insiders’ club, just as Catholics and various ethnic groups were decades ago.

For many, it will be tempting to hope—as they have for decades now—that the long-promised “emerging Democratic majority” will finally emerge. In such a scenario, the unitarians could simply bide their time until the Trump venerators fade away. Afterall, the unitarian coalition is bigger and is growing. But though they may be outnumbered, securitarians are more motivated and unified. Additionally, while Trumpists may pass from the stage at some point, the securitarian mindset animating them will not, because the MAGA masses are simply the latest version of an old and enduring human type that is not going anywhere. However things play out in the years to come, Hibbing offers us vital insights for a nuanced, measured, and data-driven understanding of a group of our fellow citizens that many find baffling.