Humility and Humilitation : a Sociological Analysis of "Catholics for Trump"

Kurzfassung/Abstract

The highly controversial presidency of Donald Trump has not deterred the continuation of a highly vocal and high-profile support of Protestant and Catholic Associations. This contribution focuses on one of such groups, “Catholics For Trump”, which primarily uses Facebook as its medium platform to advocate a close alliance between white supremacism, misogyny and a generic hatred for those branded as “liberals”. Primarily but not exclusively concentrating on the issue of abortion, the group has very little interest in any other core issues of Christianity and is instead openly hostile to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Using Franco Berardi’s (2019) concept of “Impotence”, I focus on the experience of life under Neoliberalism as one of humiliation. However, rather than associating humiliation with the calling of what it means to be a follower of Christ, which Gianni Vattimo (1995) calls “abasement” as the path to salvation, that would be a transformative humiliation consisting of intextuation, incarnation and inspiration, Catholics for Trump reject all forms of humility and thereby also what Berardi refers to as “the horizon of possibility” by cultivating instead the jouissance of humiliating the humiliators. It is this nexus of impotence and humiliation that feeds the growth of the fascist frenzy.