Even before we got to the “losers” and “suckers” phase of The Donald Trump Experience we already knew this election was set in cement. Nothing is going to stop 39% of the American voting age population from idolizing a narcissistic reality TV performer. That 39% can almost be described as “genetic”, certainly figuratively and quite possibly literally.

A few days before Donald of Bone Spur called Americans who volunteered to defeat facism — instead of making a few million bucks by taking over daddy’s real estate scams, tax frauds and all, and devoting his spare time to avoiding STDs on the Manhattan dating scene — a poll showed the same 39% crediting Trump with doing “a good job” on the COVID-19 pandemic.

If I had a dollar for every time I asked, “Who the [bleep] are these people?” well … I’d owe myself a couple million. Through the lenses of sociology, cultural anthropology and basic psychology the absolutely unmoveable, intractable, granitic allegiance of this percentage of people to Trump — not the Republican party, but Donald Trump — is nothing short of astonishing. A “good job” on the pandemic? Has this crowd been on Neptune since January?

I’ve been fascinated with this undistractable, almost reptilian response to Trump since he rode down the gilded escalator. This isn’t “normal” political appeal. This is way beyond Ronald Reagan. Trump clearly excites something in the 39% that no other personality in American leadership ever has. I said as much when I wrote about how he could “win it all” back in 2016.

Arguably, and well worth discussing, is the likelihood that there’s something even deeper than psychology at work in the tribal, animal-like response to Donald Trump among 39% of our population. Or at least I think it’s worth talking about. So bear with me here.

A little knowledge of evolutionary physiology can be a dangerous thing. But there is common agreement that at any given point in time individuals of any species, from locusts to salamanders to humans possess physical abilities different from other members of the same species. It’s Darwinian. It’s how species at large guarantee their survival. A certain percentage of every herd, or tribe, possess capabilities, genetic structure, talents and instincts that allow them to survive stress, whether by drought, famine or conflict with predators.

I’ve mentioned I’m a fan of Ezra Klein, of his website Vox, his podcast and his individual writing. And I’ve been struck by how many times in conversations with guests from one scientific discipline or another he’s walked up to the line where the logical next phase of the discussion about “Why We’re Polarized”, or tribalism or what gives with the 39% is to talk about a biological/physiological explanation.

To be specific, about the likelihood that the 39% is an evolutionary standard, possibly millions of years old. There have been studies of the psychological manifestations of an overactive, which is say, “differently wired” amygdala, the brain’s physical center for controlling emotions. A bit more active than “normal” and the fight-or flight mechanism is more hair-trigger and less reflective.

I’ve also read sensible explanations for the (very) long-term benefit to genetic survival in having a portion of every tribe wired in such a way. Having a large portion, i.e. 39%, hyper-perceptive to potential dangers — the snap of a twig in the dark forest, drums beating on the other side of the savannah — meant the tribe as a whole had a better chance of preparing for and defeating whatever might come.

This kind of talk is of course a cultural minefield, especially in the aftermath of “The Bell Curve” by Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in 1994. All hell broke loose over their suggestion that genetics explained intellectual weaknesses among races.

But what I’m talking about has nothing to do with racial or even ethnic distinctions. The possibility worth discussing is whether this is what it would more likely be, which is to say a standard percentage across every “tribe”. A very, very basic means of insuring genetic survival.

Eventually the conversation has to then turn to the value of so high a percentage in a modern, highly-interconnected and (despite what the headlines tell you) a far, far less violent world than what we evolved from at say The Dawn of Man.

Barely 200,000 years have passed since humans began some form of tribal living, a collectivizing frought with fear of the tribe on the otherside of the valley and every other … other. That’s far too little time to significantly reduce — i.e. Darwinize-out — the “inflamed amygdalas” among the human species.

So this high percentage of hair-trigger “fight or flight” tribe members today instead responds not to the snap of twigs, or smoke signals on the horizon, but rather to high intensity, high frequency signals from within the culture at large. Moreover, being at the dawn of the age of highly-individualized social media as we are, where everyone can plug into whatever excites their amygdala the most, these people can feel fortified by the presence of a vast tribe of common thinkers, or “like-minded fearer/fighters” if you will.

Donald Trump’s lamentable talent, one that I doubt he’s ever bothered to explain to himself since it works so well, but is copied from every authoritarian in history and all the autocrats of today, is to feed this percentage of the tribal population precisely what excites their brain structure most effectively. “Precisely” in terms of not just message, but of tone and context. (A “really, really rich” silverback known to associate with only attractive females.)

And yes, Trump’s triggering shtick is abetted, if not lifted whole from popular media like Fox News, Breitbart, talk radio and so on. All of which, as ratings and surveys regularly confirm, are consumed by the same percentage and composition of the population.

As scientists have said, ruefully in many cases, it’s an open question whether in evolutionary terms this 39% represents the portion of the species that survives what comes next and therefore passes on its DNA, or whether it fades away, an unadaptive anachronism, like wooly mammoths, dodo birds and our prehensile tails.

The immediate problem of course is what damage this highly instinctive, highly reactive, all but completely unreflective allegiance to the biggest ape’s constant false alarms does to the tribe in general.