In my last post I discussed the role image plays in how contemporary Americans have elected “leaders”—or really, had their leaders selected by party honchos and mass media. Today I want to speculate on why so many of us follow them.

To a degree, the tendency toward subservience is built into our species. We start out as helpless infants in need of bigger, stronger adults to take care of us. As a result, a considerable portion of the population, perhaps the majority, grows up thinking they need a Big Daddy—a big gorilla—to tell us what to do.

And we do look for someone big (as well as male). Studies show that voters almost always choose the taller candidate in presidential elections.

Many years ago, when I lived in a very small town in northern California, I was invited to a fundamentalist church service. Here’s the chorus to one of their hymns:

Trust and obey
For that’s the only way
To be happy in Jesus
Is to trust and obey

As an anarcho-lesbian feminist I was appalled, and didn’t return. But that church was always packed on Sundays—as were the four other churches in that town of 700 people!

Not all the members joined because they were looking for an authority figure. What they wanted was community. We humans are social animals, like our cousins the gorillas and chimpanzees, and unlike solitary animals such as orangutans and polar bears.

Contrary to the peculiar American fantasy of “rugged individualism,” we live and work in groups (tribes, corporations, fraternities, etc.). We give and expect help in times of need. This makes civilization possible. But when combined with the craving for a Big Daddy, our social nature makes us vulnerable to exploitation by would-be dictators.

It isn’t limited to financial exploitation. Throughout history, hordes of young men have joined “bands of brothers” and have given their lives in wars launched by egomaniacal rulers.

*          *          *

At least two more factors influence why we tend to follow certain individuals. They’ve been true throughout our history, but right now let’s consider the recent elections that put Trump in power. I have read numerous op-ed pieces where the author focuses on a single, specific explanation for the passion that fuels his supporters. In my opinion, however, the impulse behind a person’s vote varies quite a bit with class, network of friends, and aspirations, and most harbor a mix of motives.

Economics is primary. At the lower end of the economic scale, Trump supporters listened to Fox News and fell for his promise to lower the prices of eggs and gasoline. Next step up, we find the relatively well-to-do conservatives who read the Wall Street Journal and are focused on tax cuts.

Higher up the ladder are the accomplices, the amoral aspirants to jobs within the administration, which would give them both money and power. They might even have started their careers espousing Democratic policies, but switched when it seemed opportune.

Status is another major motive. In combination with economic precariousness, status drives racism and misogyny. Former President Lyndon Johnson said it best, in my opinion: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

Men of all races have been raised to look down on women. Every morning, orthodox Jewish men say a prayer thanking God “who has not made me a woman.” Last July Charlie Kirk summarized the Christian right—and politically conservative—attitude, calling on women to abandon careers and education to “submit to a godly man” and raise “more children than you can afford.” True femininity resides in servitude and motherhood.

And the young women in Kirk’s audience cheered. Why? I think it’s that girls are taught early on that they will not survive without a big, strong man—a big gorilla—to protect them from other men’s violence, and to support them and their young children.

In the next post we’ll examine what’s inside the heads of some so-called leaders, both those we choose and those who are foisted on us.