The more Trump emphasizes loss, the more voters may take a risk on him to get it back.
.. Trump is playing to one of the most powerful emotions in our economic life—what behavioral economists call loss aversion.
.. Empirical studies suggest that, in general, losing is twice as painful as winning is enjoyable.
.. in objective terms, plenty of Trump supporters haven’t lost that much. We’re familiar with Trump’s appeal among white working-class voters, many of whom truly have seen wages stagnate and jobs dry up. But the median Trump voter is actually better educated and richer than the average American
.. “People are willing to run huge risks to avert or recover losses.” In the real world, this is why people hold falling stocks, hoping for a rebound rather than cutting their losses, and it’s why they double down after losing a bet.
.. loss aversion has been instrumental in the success of authoritarian movements around the world. The political scientist Kurt Weyland has argued that it played a crucial role in the rise of such regimes in Latin America, where the fear of Communism drove putatively democratic societies toward the radical solution of strongman rule.