We’ve been writing about Trump enthusiasts being more fans than plain garden variety voters. This does odd and interesting things to the political process.
Vox, a source we sometimes cite when trying to comprehend pop culture, has a good article about fandom and the places where it takes on elements of stalker behavior, enhanced by the Internet, to become something new, called a “stan” which is a portmanteau of “stalker” and “fan.”
The author - Aja Romano - directly focuses on this as an explanation for the Trump phenomenon and I suspect “they” (preferred pronoun) are onto something. It is a worthwhile read.
Trump’s political rise coincides with a specific substrain of intense celebrity fandom that emerged in the new millennium. The “stan,” sometimes referred to collectively as “standom,” is an ironic term borrowed from Eminem’s 2000 song “Stan,” about a stalker fan whose obsession goes too far.
The concept of “stanning” was hugely shaped by Twitter’s ability to allow fans to follow their faves in real time, commune with other fans, and even talk directly to the creators they stanned. It hardly seems coincidental that during the era when celebrities and pop stars became more immediately interactive with their fanbases, Trump successfully styled himself not as a politician, but as a celebrity who deigned to do politics just to satisfy his long-suffering fans.
But the idea of Trump as a conduit works both ways. If you wanted to see political change, you couldn’t just vote for Trump; you had to transfer your emotional investment from politics at large onto him individually. You had to stan him.
Making the task confronting DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy, etc. insurmountable as long as Trump remains in the running. Thus Trump’s oft-repeated mantra, “They don’t hate me, they hate you. I’m just in their way.” It’s over-simplified to be sure, but probably correct in essence.
