The Faithful are Never Wrong (02.07.2025)

I’m fascinated by Trump’s MAGA crowd. Their faith in him seems unshakeable. It doesn’t matter what he does, they keep wearing their hats and waving their flags. His status is almost god-like.

This has got me thinking about the word ‘faith’ and what it means, and why we qualify it with ‘blind’ faith, ‘bad’ faith and ‘religious’ faith.

Most people think of faith as something we possess and try to accumulate, much like wealth and friendship, and this is understandable because ‘faith’ functions as a noun in our language. We ‘have faith’ or we ‘lose faith’.

Now, of course, we have faith in those things we value. They are psychologically important to us because they ground our understanding of the world. When we lose faith, we suffer, and the more we’ve invested in our faith, the greater the suffering is.

Some people understand faith as a form of knowledge. This implies it’s something that we acquire when we understand the world correctly, the ‘now I see’ attitude. This can hold both for a religious believer and a MAGA supporter. It separates the faithful from the non-faithful, and encourages an evangelical approach to life where others are encouraged to see the ‘truth’.

The problem with faith as knowledge is its passivity. Faith isn’t really a noun; it functions more like a verb. It is something we do. Kant wrote, ‘I have … found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith’. This is important because we really don’t know as much as we think. Everything is open to doubt, so faith exists because knowledge is incomplete. But then, how do we ensure our faith is justified? The Enlightenment philosopher, Hume, said ‘a wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence’, which is all very well but sometimes there isn’t enough evidence either way.

One solution is to see faith as a kind of belief. There are many things we’re justified to believe in even if the evidence is slight. It’s reasonable to assume the cup of coffee you left by your desk will be there when you return, and it’s reasonable to assume the sun will rise tomorrow. Is it reasonable for a MAGA supporter to believe in Trump? I doubt it but that’s because faith is more than just belief. It’s also about conviction and trust.

This explains some of it psychological power. When you trust someone, you invest everything in them. Think about getting married: you can never have sufficient evidence that your partner will stay by you; in fact, your friends and family may try to convince otherwise, but your trust is so great that it’s immune to evidence.

This holds for the MAGA supporter too. A true believer isn’t going to give up easily. The philosopher Mitchel likens it to a spy in occupied France. His contact has told him that his life depends on trusting him, even if it appears on occasions that he is working for the enemy. Will the spy give up his faith in the contact? Maybe, but not quickly or effortlessly.  

And this is the most important aspect of faith: that it’s an active choice to see the world in a certain way, and to commit yourself whole-heartedly to that choice. It’s both a ‘task’ and a ‘passion’. Kierkegaard, the Danish existentialist spoke of the ‘leap of faith’. You run with reason as far as it will take you, and then you leap into rational uncertainty. In doing so, you align your thoughts and actions to whatever you consider to be of ultimate value. You commit yourself to seeing the world in a certain way and this is beyond knowledge and truth; it is also beyond justification as well.

Kierkegaard was talking about religious faith, but the MAGA supporter has much in common with us believers. They have invested their souls and minds in Trump’s ‘truth’, and have chosen to see the world as he does; his very words ground their reality.

What will it take for them to change their mind? I’m not sure because the psychological cost of doing so is enormous. I suspect they will keep qualifying everything he does to stay within the ‘faith’. Like Mitchel’s spy, they will keep on believing.