Are People Quiet Quitting Trump?

Are the never-ending lies, crimes, scandals, hateful rhetoric, and Project 2025 leading to people quiet quitting Trump?

Where I live in Lexington, Kentucky, during the election seasons of 2016 and 2020, our yards yelled at each other about the candidates we were supporting. Signs sprouted like weeds almost as soon as the candidates announced their intentions for the presidential election. With placards waving incessantly at passersby, it was like a silent screaming match across driveways and flower beds.

But in 2024?  Not so much.

Sure, there is the neighbor’s 2020 Trump sign that has remained a permanent fixture in their yard.  And another neighbor’s homemade Trump sign has become weathered and worn over the past four years.

But we are nearly a month from election day, and most of the yards in my neighborhood are empty of political signs.

I considered putting a Harris-Walz sign in our front yard.  But after the shooting incident on July 13 at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, we decided against it. Although Lexington is a blue-dot city, there are still plenty of gun-brandishing MAGA residents here.  Best not to trigger them.

Apparently, there are other Harris supporters who are doing the same. 

One neighbor told me that she is voting for Harris but not putting up a sign because of fear of retaliation from her employer.

Another person confided to me her stepmother is voting for Kamala Harris but not telling her Trump-loving father. It’s prudent to keep the peace at home and make her voice heard at the ballot box.

In other words, I’m suspecting that there may be more support for the Harris-Walz ticket than even the polls are showing.

This is not to say there are no Trump signs, because of course there are.  But there are considerably less than I saw in the previous two elections.

This has me wondering.

Are people quiet quitting Trump?

It seems I’m not the only person observing the diminished number of Trump signs in bright-red areas of the country. I’ve been unofficially tracking posts about this on Twitter.

One person wrote: “I live in a red county that has had signs for the convicted felon rapist everywhere since 2016 – but could count on one hand what is up for him this election. A few for Harris here and there. People are just quietly changing their minds and not advertising this to their neighbors.”

Another one said: “I’m in Texas. I don’t see Harris signs. But I’ve been surprised how few of his signs I’ve seen. So, maybe progress?”

Of course, we won’t know until after November 5^th what the lack of signs means. 

It may be that sign-less voters are not quiet quitting Trump, but are simply not being public about their support for him.

But even in the rural areas around Lexington, I’m surprised to see so few Trump signs, and even some signs for Harris-Walz.

Could it be that the “silent majority” this time is a quietly building blue wave that will crest in the 2024 election?

There are other indications that people are quiet quitting Trump.

According to data from the Crowd Counting Consortium, Trump’s average crowd sizes (5,600) are smaller than Harris’s (13,400).  Many who attend his rallies leave early. And I’m seeing scores of videos from Republicans who say they are voting for Kamala Harris because of their disgust with Trump’s lies and hateful rhetoric, as well as their fears about Project 2025.

Project 2025 is especially unpopular, even with a plurality of Republicans.

A recent NBC News poll indicates that “about 57% of registered voters report feeling negatively about Project 2025.” That includes 33% of Republicans.

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is the Christian nationalist blueprint for dismantling the democratic infrastructures of government and replacing them with autocratic mandates supported by Trump loyalists.

Spearheaded by the extremist right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a “well-funded and highly coordinated effort to institute a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and do the work of special interests and ideological extremists as opposed to doing work for the American people,” according to Democracy Forward’s analysis of the 900-page document.

Adding to the reasons for people quiet quitting Trump is his running mate, JD Vance.

Vance has shape-shifted his entire career, morphing from Appalachian hillbilly, to Yale Law School graduate, to darling of the billionaire tech bros who funded his Senate campaign. Now they’ve inserted him into the position that would be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

According to Vance’s former Yale Law School classmate, “the Republican vice presidential nominee is a ‘chameleon’ who has changed his views on ‘literally every imaginable issue.’” This includes shifting from thinking that Trump was “America’s H!tler” to accepting the nomination to be his running mate.

Vance’s recent debate performance clearly demonstrated his ability to lie with the smoothness of The Talented Mr. Ripley.  There was none of Trump’s bluster and blather. No, Vance effortlessly spins out lies with the calm smile of a practiced psychopath.  It was chilling to watch.

Because behind Vance’s genial persona lurks a manipulative, amoral, and dangerous man who has no qualms in telling lies that cause incredible harm to people, including Haitian immigrants.

JD Vance’s real agenda

Even more alarming is Vance’s statement that we need to “totally replace, rip out like a tumor, the American leadership class, and reinstall some sense of American political religion.”

Yes, he’s talking about a theocracy.

Such views come from radical thinkers such as billionaire Peter Thiel (who funded Vance’s rise in politics) and New Right techno-authoritarian Curtis Yarvin, who argues that Americans need to “get over their dictator-phobia.” Rachel Maddow’s recent segment on JD Vance’s real agenda for America is a must-watch wake-up call about Vance’s real agenda.

Thus, Project 2025 would be merely the warm-up act for the dystopian future that JD Vance and his techno-autocrats envision for America.

This may sound horrific to you.  But for 40% of Americans, an authoritarian future is appealing.

Public Religion Research Institute recently surveyed 5,000 Americans and found that four in ten “are susceptible to authoritarian appeals, and that number rises to two-thirds of Republicans and white evangelical Protestants.”

According to PRRI president and founder, Robert Jones, “Notably, while the vast majority of Americans reject the use of political violence, those who support authoritarianism are nearly twice as likely as the general public to support it. These findings should serve as an important warning as we enter an election season that is incredibly consequential for the health of American democracy.”

What fuels this desire for a strong leader who is willing to break rules and use violence against opponents?

In a word, fear.

As PRRI reports, “support for authoritarian views are strongest among Republicans (particularly those who hold favorable views of former President Donald Trump), supporters of Christian nationalism, white evangelical Protestants, and weekly churchgoers.”

At the heart of the religious fervor driving right-wing authoritarianism among churchgoers are Christian apocalyptic and dominionist views. These views stoke fear and hatred of immigrants, women, those with a college education (“the elite”), people of color, and those who do not conform to their religious mandates for society.

Granted, fear provides a great deal of energy for despotic movements.

As I wrote in a recent article about Trump’s “eating cats and dogs” hoax, fear is a primary recruiting technique for hate groups.

But fear is not the only energy in play this is election season.  In fact, I don’t think it’s even the most powerful energy right now.

I believe the combined power of joy, unity, and compassion is a stronger energy than fear.

From the beginning of her campaign, Kamala Harris has been a powerful, joyful force countering Trump and Vance’s grievance-stoking fear. And the unity of coalition building around her has been impressive.

Black Women for Kamala led the way with an estimated 90,000 people on their Zoom call on July 21^st, just days after Joe Biden stepped down and Harris stepped up.

Since then, there have been Zoom calls across a wide spectrum of interest groups. 160,000 on White Women for Kamala. 180,000 on White Dudes for Kamala. 70,000 on Republicans for Harris. And, yes, there was even an Evangelicals for Harris with 40,000 on Zoom.

This is the kind of coalition building that is needed to counter Trump’s and Vance’s scourge of fearmongering.

And it may be an indication that people are doing more than quiet quitting Trump.

They may be “quiet questing.”

I believe there may be a movement of people subtly, yet actively, seeking out opportunities to heal from the hatred.  People who want to reconnect with their – and their neighbors’ – humanity.

I sense that this “quiet questing” may usher in a new era of rebuilding the things that create community – civility, respect, service, ethics, and compassion.

It’s a Monsters Inc. moment!

I keep thinking about the first Monsters Inc. movie.  In the monster world, scaring children was their source of power. They competed to see who could scare the most children and receive prizes for quickly fulfilling their “scare quota.”

But when a toddler accidentally ends up in their world, her laughter is so powerful that it literally blows the circuits. Eventually the monsters learn that joy and love are more potent than fear.

Yes, they must battle and outsmart the autocratic CEO who financially benefits from his fear-based power and would do anything to keep it. But eventually they learn to reconstruct their entire power grid for the purposes of making children laugh with joy instead of scream with fear.

If you’re quiet quitting Trump, you’re not alone.

And if you’re quiet questing for a future that fills you with hope, purpose, and a sense of camaraderie with your fellow Americans, there’s a wide blue tent to welcome you.

But you must do more than hope.  You must vote blue up and down the ballot in all races in local, state, and national levels.

We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to more than quiet quit Trump.  We can loudly and boldly show that Americans are better than our worst demons and stronger with our better angels.

When our better angels come together, our better future can become a reality.

[Update, 11/6/2024.  I was wrong.  People were not quiet quitting Trump after all. Fear, hatred, misogyny, xenophobia, and Christian nationalism have taken over. May God have mercy on us.]

Read more:

Walz’s “Mind Your Own Damn Business” is Actually Biblical

What Clergy Can Say (and Not Say) During the Election Season

Election Season Sermon Ideas for Mark 10:35-45, Oct. 20

The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade is the Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky and ordained in the ELCA. Dr. Schade does not speak for LTS or the ELCA; her opinions are her own.  She is the author of Preaching and Social Issues: Tools and Tactics for Empowering Your Prophetic Voice (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024), Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) and Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology, and the Pulpit (Chalice Press, 2015). She is the co-editor of Rooted and Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). Her book, Introduction to Preaching: Scripture, Theology, and Sermon Preparation, was co-authored with Jerry L. Sumney and Emily Askew (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023).