The humiliation theory of American politics

Why did Donald Trump decide to run for president? One story often told is that he made his choice in 2011 at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner while President Obama was roasting him in front of the world.

What about Obama? He tells the story of how, in 2000, he badly lost a congressional race and was devastated.

I always tell people don’t underestimate the public humiliation of losing in politics. It’s unlike what most people experience as adults, this sense of rejection.

He considered dropping out of politics altogether, and a friend encouraged him to go to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. They would stay together, go to parties, and connect with people excited about national politics. It will cheer you up, his friend said.

It was a disaster. Obama couldn’t rent a car because his credit card was maxed out. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

His hall pass only allowed him to explore the hallways and perimeter of the auditorium. He couldn’t see anything.

“My friend would try to get me into some of the after-parties after the convention and bouncers would be standing there saying, ‘Who’s this guy?’ And ‘He doesn’t have the right credentials.’”

“I felt as if I was a third wheel in this whole thing, so I ended up leaving early,” Obama continued. “That was a stage when I was really questioning whether I should continue in politics.”

I’m unsure if it counts as a humiliation story, but it does seem humiliation-adjacent.

Why did Elon Musk abandon the Democrats and come to support the Republicans, helping Trump get elected to a second term? Part of this change of heart was likely due to an event that then-President Biden held in 2021 to announce new targets for electric vehicle sales. Biden invited the CEOs from the major companies that made these vehicles—and left out Musk, who owned Tesla, the biggest such company.

Last one: Tucker Carlson has become a major figure in MAGA culture, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him as a Republican presidential candidate one day. If so, one can partially credit this to the terrible drubbing he got from the comedian Jon Stewart. This led to his show being canceled and Carlson losing his job.

I’ve kept my examples American, but humiliation stories abound, including Gandhi’s experience being removed from a first-class train in South Africa and Hitler’s response to the Treaty of Versailles, which he described as an “instrument of unlimited blackmail and shameful humiliation.”¹

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We shouldn’t take any of these stories too seriously.

The notion that we can explain human actions by single causes is silly. If Obama had used other material, history would have been profoundly different. Any change to the timeline has massive effects—see my post on Clumsy Gods—but Trump might still have run for office. 

Still, it’s notable how often humiliation comes up as a motivating force for certain big decisions. I’m a pluralist when it comes to motivation. I think there are all sorts of forces working on our psyches, and I’ll show them is only one of them. But it’s an important one.

We are social animals. We care intensely about how others perceive us. It feels great to be loved and respected by those we are close to and by members of the communities we identify with. It feels terrible to be maligned and disrespected, to feel that everyone we respect is laughing at us.

Drops in status occur all the time, but they’re usually gradual. In the sorts of acts of humiliation we’ve been talking about, it’s a shock—it happens all of a sudden. Now, in my examples, those who were humiliated were powerful men with good social support; they felt the blow, but they didn’t drop too far and were well-positioned to plan their comeuppance. When those who are humiliated lack such resources, it hurts much more. Sometimes, they kill themselves. Or kill others. As Martin Daly and Margo Wilson point out in their classic book Homicide, a startling number of murders, particularly by young men, are motivated by acts of perceived disrespect, by loss of face.

I think a pretty obvious conclusion from all this is to stop humiliating people. It causes needless pain.

This is advice people find hard to take, though. Humiliating others can be a lot of fun. Recently, there was a poor woman who did an abysmal breakdancing performance in the Olympics. She was savagely mocked on social media and elsewhere; people in my neighborhood dressed up as her for Halloween. There was a joy to this mockery. Cruelty can be a kick, and it’s hard to get people to give up on something they enjoy.²

Is there a more practical argument against humiliation? Perhaps—putting aside the moral concerns—it’s a bad idea to humiliate your enemies because it will fuel their desire for revenge. I bet Obama regrets his roast of Trump.

It would be nice if this were true, if what is right and what is practical converged. But you have to consider the upsides of humiliation. Trump uses humiliation of all sorts against his enemies—two examples of many are Ted Cruz and Chris Christie—and it hasn’t seemed to hurt him. Humiliation can send a useful message to its victims—Keep away, or I’ll do it again—and to those who witness it—This is what you get when you mess with me.

So we’re just left with the moral concern. But I think it’s a serious one. I remember watching Obama and cracking up as he ripped Trump apart. Now, I think both of us were wrong.

1. The Treaty is widely acknowledged as a force that led to World War II, but other more personal stories of humiliation are said to explain, at least in part, what motivated Hitler’s rise to power.

2. But she deserves it! She’s a bad person. She only got into the Olympics because her husband was involved in team selection. She has it coming to her. 

Now, even if this were true, I don’t think this punishment is proportional. And, anyway, it’s not true. I think such they-deserve-it stories are popular because, while we often enjoy tormenting people, we are not altogether monsters and want to feel as if our cruelty is morally acceptable, even praiseworthy.