Just to give you some context: I'm Black, my family is Black, and my uncle was the pastor of a church. It was an evangelical Presbyterian church that was very racially diverse. We had White people, Black people, Asian people, interracial couples, and so on. So, on the surface, it seemed fairly liberal, right?
The church had a lot of Trump supporters, but it also had a lot of Black members, including my uncle, who hated Donald Trump and still do. They didn't like Trump, didn't like the Republican Party, and generally voted Democrat.
To be specific, our youth group was small—only eight teenagers, four of whom were brothers. We were all people of color. One of the church members, however, was a hardcore Republican and MAGA supporter. He invited me and some of the other kids to come paint his fence one day, but my aunt told my mom she didn't want me going over there because of his politics. There was even some friction within the church because some members supported Trump, while the anti-Trump members strongly disliked those who voted for him.
However, here's what confuses me: almost every single one of the anti-Trump members—outside of me and maybe two other people—was extremely homophobic and transphobic. They were also all strongly pro-life. They hated abortion and viewed it as "murder." One kid in the church literally said, "Gay people deserve to be hurt."
So they held very socially conservative views, yet they didn't support the Republican Party and hated Trump. Why is that? Why would someone hate MAGA while basically agreeing with many of the same social positions? Why would they call themselves liberals or Democrats? My uncle literally said he was a liberal who votes Democrat, yet he's extremely pro-life. How can that be?
I'll ask the same question about the other side. Look at Brad Polumbo—he's gay, supports LGBTQ+ rights, and has spoken out against racism and homophobia, yet he's still right-wing and supports the Republican Party. The same goes for Arielle Scarcella, who's a lesbian, and Blair White, who's a trans woman and probably the most famous example. I don't think Blair is necessarily transphobic, but she supports Trump and identifies as Republican.
So why does this happen? Why do some people identify with a political party even when they disagree with that party on major issues? And why do some people reject a party despite agreeing with many of its core positions?
We like to think in easily separate-able categories, black and white stuff (absolutely no pun on race in this case). We are also able to hold opposing viewpoints in our heads at the same time. And we are all susceptible to political messaging. It's like advertising; it wears people down.
So you can be a true believer of whatever Christian church and support a man in the White House who couldn't be much more from your professed ideals if he tried. You can also think abortion is murder and support killing children in Iran. You can believe in civil rights and still want no Arab looking neighbors. We are full of contradictions.
The US suffers also from only having one more mainline party than North Korea or the PRC. If you look at other countries that are democracies, you'll find half a dozen parties vying for power. It offers more tents to assemble under, whereas in the US most people end up under one of two and arrange themselves with the inconsistencies between their own values and those of the party consensus more easily than in France, just as one example, where Macron launched his own new party before he became president. (Just for balance: 2+ party democracies can also still be shit at the end of the day but they offer more choices.)