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In one study of voter perception of the personality traits of presidential candidates--Trump and Biden--Democrats saw some narcissism and Machiavellian traits in Biden, but much greater levels of both in Trump, along with a clear predominance of sadism in Trump, none of that in Biden. Republicans, on the other hand, reported the narcissism and Machiavellian traits as about equal in both and had little concern over the question of sadism (Prusik, 2025). Other studies[1] have also looked at various voter emotions, including some that correlated men with weak self-image attracted to aggressive, dominating, authoritarian candidates, identifying Trump as such.
Indeed, sadism seems to be political theater[2] to Trump, showing his base that he is indeed their retribution, with tendencies toward both ethnic cleansing (e.g., move as many Hispanics as possible out of the US, utilizing false labeling of them as violent criminals) and genocide (support for the IDF slaughtering Gazan civilians). Firing or demoting most high-ranking women in the military seemed to be red meat to his MAGA base, possibly many of whom seemed to be resentful that a big strong man isn't necessarily the best leadership of a highly technical, complex organization tasked with keeping the US secure. That simplistic identification--I'm big and strong and I should have been promoted to lead when I was in the army--could help explain Trump's appeal and the positive feedback loop of support for increasingly brutal and unfair actions by Trump and by his handpicked hatchet actors such as Pete Hegseth (the one firing women from commands in the Pentagon and even ordering DoD libraries stripped of what he determines to be DEI content).
References
Prusik, M. (2025). Dark tetrad traits in politicians and voter behavior: Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Journal of Research in Personality, 115, N.PAG. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1016/j.jrp.2024.104568
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