You Have (1) New Grift

Trauma Bonding in Trump’s Email Fundraising Appeals

In my book, I examine the trauma bond that cements Trump’s supporters to him. In that form of malignant attachment, dependency and fear are fused, not unlike the grip held by a mob boss, perpetrators of domestic violence, cult leaders, and many autocrats. The leader is both the protector and the persecutor.

In cults, the leader-follower relationship echoes some aspects of the “get’em-sick-get’em-well” strategy seen in so much advertising. Many commercials begin with ominous music and a threatening message that generates anxiety about a troubling condition—body odor, obesity, disease, or unattractiveness. Then, as the music swells with uplift and hope, the cure is offered, which, of course, is the product. Cult leaders employ an analogous approach. They generate a sense of threat by conjuring an outside danger or by being a threat. Then, the leader insists he or she is the only one who can keep members safe. As the leader is both the source of fear and the protector against it, it generates what social psychologist and cult researcher Alexandra Stein and others have called it a trauma bond.

An examination of Trump’s email fundraising appeals on the eve of his State of the Union address shows his and his handler’s reliance on this psychology. Trump is presented as a source of punishment and love, threat and promise. There are threats of exile: “Your membership is on life support” and “Your membership is on its last legs.” The danger of perceived disloyalty is presented: “Don’t let him down” and “Don’t leave me stranded.” In the event the recipient doesn’t cough up the dough, Trump channels his inner John Gotti and proclaims ominously, “I’m asking nicely.”

Should that fail to get you to open your wallet, the Trump team conjures up MAGA’s tried-and-true tribal enemies: “the Radical Left,” “the Deep State,” “Liberal Judges,” “Jimmy Kimmel,” and the “Fake News Media” (their caps).

One of the MAGA cult’s core drivers, status anxiety, often shows up in racialized forms, paranoid fantasies like the “Great Replacement” by which people of color are leading to the extinction of the white race. Then there is the long-standing delusional terror that rapacious and murderous immigrant hordes are swarming over the border like waves of relentless fire ants and “poisoning the blood.” There is also the gendered version of this anxiety. The MAGA manosphere is rife with warnings about the precarity of manhood itself because of all the independent women rejecting trad-wifery who don’t know their place and whose refusal of subordination threatens to turn men into castrated soy-boy cucks.

In the fundraising emails, the “get’em well” solution is to promise the recipients “first class MAGA status,” membership into the “Elite Inner Circle,” the “Trump Gold Club,” and the privileged “Founders Club.” With “Exclusive 2026 MAGA Membership” they are eligible for the “MAGA Gold Metal Award” and can be designated a “Top MAGA Patriot.” Share your credit card number with the Donald, and you’ll be able to “Claim Your Seat on My Trump Advisory Board.”

If you, dear reader, have not been a recipient of this email grift, your spam filter is working as designed. Or even better, your algorithmic internet profile has not identified you as a sufficiently credulous and vulnerable mark.