Somehow, I already intuited this:

 

This Study Finds a Chilling Link Between Personality Type and Trump Support 

Malevolent traits and reduced empathy go hand in hand. 

"In the years since Donald Trump emerged as the face of American conservatism, psychologists have grappled with a vexing question: why do so many Americans remain loyal to a morally questionable leader? Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims, he had an affair with an adult star, and consistently misused donations, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg; yet, he maintains a cult-like loyal following. 

A new study, published this month in the Journal of Research in Personality, suggests part of the answer may lie deep within the personalities of his supporters. 

The research, led by psychologist Craig Neumann of the University of North Texas, examined whether certain personality traits—those associated with callousness, manipulation, and even enjoyment of others’ suffering—correlate with conservative ideology and support for Trump. The findings are striking: people who view Trump favorably are more likely to score higher on measures of malevolent traits and lower on empathy and compassion."

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"The reverse also held true. Participants who scored higher on benevolent traits like humanism, faith in humanity, and respect for others tended to oppose Trump and lean politically liberal.

These patterns held across gender and racial groups, though there were key differences. White men who scored higher on psychopathic traits also showed stronger support for Trump and conservative ideology. Among men of minority status, however, psychopathy did not predict political ideology. This variation, researchers propose, could stem from differing lived experiences with social power, privilege, and marginalization.

The study also looked at empathy, and the findings were disturbing once again. Trump supporters reported significantly lower levels of affective empathy (emotional concern for others) and higher levels of dissonant empathy (enjoyment of others’ pain). Interestingly, their ability to understand how others feel (cognitive empathy) remained intact."

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My takeaway:

If you admire a person like Trump, who has been a cheat, a liar, and a fraudster his entire life, then perhaps you admire those traits in your fellow human beings, and you enjoy seeing a bully, like Trump, make people's lives miserable.

IMO, if you admire and are drawn to a person like Trump who's consistently shown himself to be without honor and human decency, then perhaps those qualities in a leader are attractive to you, and possibly are qualities that you share with Trump himself? I don't know. I'm not a psychologist.

But I DO know that Americans who continue to support Trump (after all we know about his appalling temperament and immoral behavior) are willfully blind because they either lack the moral courage to abandon their support of him; or, worse, they're as morally repugnant as he is.