Psychological Profile of Chinese Trump Fans and a Way Out of the Hurt
Zhao Minglan (赵明兰)
In recent weeks, a series of scenes in Minnesota’s Twin Cities has felt like a political psychodrama forced onto fast-forward. The federal government has launched Operation Metro Surge (“都会激流行动”), suddenly sending some two thousand federal immigration officers into the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area and calling it “one of the largest immigration enforcement actions in history.” In this wave, there have already been shootings, arrests, and large-scale raids. The state government and the two city governments, represented by Attorney General Keith Ellison (埃利森), have sued the Department of Homeland Security, accusing it of an unconstitutional act of political retaliation and a “federal invasion.” At the same time, Vice President J. D. Vance (万斯) has said in the media that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will go “door to door” checking people’s identities, and that “as more agents come online, removals will continue to increase.”
What chills people even more is the reporting by multiple outlets and local council members that in some St. Paul neighborhoods, federal agents have been knocking on doors, holding up photos and asking residents, “Do you know these people?” “Which houses around here are Hmong? Which ones are Asian?” That means ordinary residents are being turned, unwillingly, into “informants,” and “Asian” itself is being treated as a suspicious category, pulled out and questioned on its own. For Chinese Americans, this is frightening enough. But for those who once shouted, “I love Trump like a first love” about Donald Trump (川普)—the group often called “Chinese Trump fans” (华川粉)—it feels more like a psychological collapse: the man they imagined as an “anti-Communist warrior,” a “restorer of order,” a “guardian of conservative values” is now directing the state machinery that’s rolling down their own streets and knocking on their own front doors.
So people have begun to ask: What is the psychology of “Chinese Trump fans”? How did this “yellow skin, white heart” banana mentality take shape? Why did it emerge within the Chinese-American community? Now that ICE is literally standing outside the door, how can they part ways with their past political choices? And how can they walk out of the psychological harm caused by their misreading of politics?
Chinese Trump Fans: Cognition and Psychology
First, a basic fact: Chinese-American voters as a whole are not “Trump’s core base.” In the 2020 surveys of Asian-American voters, about 55 percent of Asian Americans leaned toward the Democratic candidate, and around 30 percent toward Trump; in the breakdown by ethnicity, the Chinese-American share supporting Trump hovered around twenty percent, lower than among Vietnamese, Filipino, and some other groups. Tracking polls in 2024 and 2025 also show that Asian-American favorability toward Trump and his policies has generally declined, and most respondents view his economic and diversity policies negatively. So in terms of numbers, “Chinese Trump fans” are not a majority, much less can they claim to “represent all Chinese.” But they are highly visible in Chinese-language online spaces, their tone is intense, and they are good at acting as a bloc. To many observers, this has been magnified into the illusion that “Chinese = Trump fans.”
From the perspective of political psychology, “Chinese Trump fans” are less a column of voters in a dataset than a psychological subculture. Roughly speaking, a few typical traits overlap.
They have a strong anti-Communist emotion and a tendency to project onto a “savior.” Many overseas Chinese have been bitterly dissatisfied with the Chinese Communist regime for years, hoping that some “external force” will topple it. In this state of mind, Trump’s “tough on China” stance was imagined as an “anti-Communist vanguard,” even a kind of “rod of God.” Legal scholar Teng Biao (滕彪) has noted that for many Chinese Trump fans, the primary reason for supporting Trump is that he is “ruthless enough and dares to strike at the Chinese Communist Party,” while the damage he has done to America’s democratic institutions is something many neither care about nor have the knowledge to assess.
Chinese Trump fans are more likely to be middle- and upper-class, recent immigrants, and male. Media reports and research have pointed out that the most active Chinese Trump fans tend to cluster among small business owners, stock traders, real-estate players, or people in high-income technical jobs—those who like to stress “low taxes,” “the stock market,” and “anti-welfare.” Their self-image is the story of “hard-working, law-abiding, self-made success,” and they are instinctively wary of, if not openly contemptuous toward, “the poor,” “protesters,” and “welfare recipients.”
They have a strong “law-and-order anxiety” and a reverence for order. Coming from a society where “turmoil leads to collapse” is a constant propaganda narrative, they have a deep fear of social disorder and a strong desire for order. When they see protests and acts of violence in the United States, they easily slot them into memories of the “Cultural Revolution” and “smash-and-grab” chaos. When Trump shouts “law and order,” many are not thinking about how the Constitution limits public power; they are thinking, “Finally someone is willing to use an iron fist to crush the chaos in the streets.”
The information environment is extremely narrow. Many Chinese Trump fans rely heavily on Chinese-language right-wing media, YouTube channels, and WeChat friend circles for their news. Studies have found that WeChat has become a key platform for mobilizing and shaping political views in Chinese communities, not only in organizing around issues like affirmative action, but also in amplifying hard-to-verify information on the pandemic and elections.
Taken together, these psychological traits produce a typical image: a Chinese conservative who hates the Chinese Communist Party, worships strongmen, is eager to “wash white,” and is deeply convinced that they will always stand on the side of “law-abiding, mainstream, normal people.” This is what people mean when they say “Chinese Trump fan.”
“I Love Trump Like a First Love”
There is a popular little rhyme online: “Trump abuses me a thousand times; I love Trump like a first love” (“川普虐我千百遍，我爱川普如初恋”). The metaphor of “first love” is not exaggerated. Many Chinese Trump fans do, in fact, feel a teenage kind of infatuation and projection toward Trump.
They project their anti-Communist feelings onto an American strongman. For many people whose political education took place in China, “anti-Communism” is almost the only form of “resistance” that is allowed: it lets them vent their anger at the system without forcing them to rethink power itself. In his rhetoric about China, Trump cuts back on diplomatic decorum and goes straight to mockery, threats, and maximum pressure. It is easy to read this as: “This American president dares to say things even China’s own reform-minded insiders don’t dare to say.” As a result, some people skip over any serious evaluation of Trump himself or of the actual U.S. system and simply equate him with “a tool sent by Heaven to destroy the Communist Party.”
They tie their own class ascent to the Republican label. In some Chinese circles, there is a crude, simple formula: if you talk business → vote Republican. If you talk welfare and fairness → that is “the Left” or “socialism,” which is “turning into China again.” Put this binary together with a bit of modest success after years of hard work in America, and it easily turns into an emotional conclusion: “Trump stands for the side that supports business, the stock market, and the ‘capable.’ Supporting him is supporting myself.”
Then there is male gender identity and a patriarchal fantasy. Trump’s gendered style—rude, dismissive, and paternalistic—is deeply off-putting to many. But for others it calls up a familiar patriarchal image: “This is how a man should be, speaking without restraint and getting things done.” In some family structures, the father has long been absent or emotionally suppressed. A strongman in politics can easily become a psychological “father substitute,” someone they can both curse and depend on. This, too, is part of the “first love” feeling.
But once the iron fist of “law and order” starts falling on their own neighborhood, the story changes tone. When it is ICE standing at the door, pounding with a battering ram, when the scenes on television bounce back as reality at the corner of their own street, the Chinese Trump fans’ old cognitive frame starts to crack, and what follows can be dissonance and even psychological trauma.
The progress of Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities is more than abstract “immigration enforcement.” News reports and videos shot by residents show masked federal agents in groups stopping people on streets, at bus stops, and in parking lots to check their IDs; protesters being dragged and pinned down with force; a white woman shot and killed by ICE agents, triggering days of protest; and the state and city governments deeming this a systemic violation of local autonomy and citizens’ rights. At the same time, the press has reported that when ICE agents go door to door in some neighborhoods, they have indeed said “help us point out which houses are Asian or Hmong,” which has led to strong accusations of racial profiling. All this quickly shatters a belief that has long circulated among Chinese Trump fans: “As long as my status is legal and I work hard, I will not be targeted.”
When federal agents do not care whether the person in front of them is a “small business owner who has been paying taxes and following the law for forty years,” and question people instead on the basis of skin color, ethnicity, and language, many suddenly realize that the “safe distance” they thought they had from state violence does not actually exist.
For some Chinese Trump fans, this is not a matter of simply “switching to another candidate.” It is a deep psychological wound. The wound shows up as a kind of inverted trauma: shame, anger, and a hard-to-confess regret.
First, shame. They have defended Trump loudly in family chats and in front of their children, even attacking compatriots who disagreed with them. As reality keeps proving that “they backed the wrong horse,” the shame can be overwhelming. Second, anger. The anger is not only directed at the federal government but also at the man they once turned into a political totem: “Why is there such a gap between what you said and what you did?” Third, a sense of being uprooted. They hate the regime they left behind, yet now find that the new regime they threw their support to does not treat them as “its own people” either. It is easy to slip into a feeling of isolation: “There is no place in the world where I really belong.” Without understanding and support from the outside, these emotions can slide toward self-blame, self-loathing, and even impulses to self-harm.
Psychological Roots: The Banana Mentality of Yellow Skin, White Heart
Chinese Trump fans have a pronounced banana mentality: yellow skin, white heart. “Banana person” and “yellow on the outside, white on the inside” started as insults, but there is, in fact, a whole social logic behind them.
There is the traditional culture of power: adoring the strong, despising the weak. Chinese political culture has a deeply embedded worship of power and a “winner-takes-all” way of seeing the world. The strong are equated with “capable” and “competent”; the weak are often seen as “deserving it” and “useless.” In imperial times this value system justified the emperor and the hierarchy. In the present, it resurfaces in every sort of setting—from the workplace to the bureaucracy, from “success-philosophy” to the obsession with “intensive parenting.” That culture fits neatly with a Trump-style strongman image: speaking without restraint is seen as “authentic”; using power roughly is read as “decisive”; hurting others is repackaged as “daring to tell the truth.” In the minds of some Chinese Trump fans, “white American conservatives” are imagined as “the new Son of Heaven,” “the new mainstream.” If they cling tightly enough, they think they can get a bit of safety and respect.
Then there is racial hierarchy and the trap of the “model minority.” American society is far from flat; long-standing racial hierarchies structure it. East Asian Americans have been packaged as a “model minority”: hard-working, quiet, good at school, politically apathetic. On the surface this sounds like praise; in reality it is a way to tame. As long as they behave, as long as they align themselves with mainstream values, they can trade that obedience for a bit of relative safety at the margins. Some Chinese Trump fans consciously squeeze themselves into this position: “We are not like Black people or Latinos. We don’t cause trouble. We follow the law. We study hard. We do not take advantage.”
In this narrative, Black people, Latinos, Muslims, refugees, undocumented immigrants, and even “poor whites” inside the country are bundled together as “others,” as “problems.” “I am not them” becomes a political identity in itself. So when Trump uses the crudest language to attack immigrants, refugees, and minorities, some Chinese Trump fans’ first reaction is not “this will hurt us too,” but “finally someone is keeping those people out.”
There is also the “over-assimilation” brought on by the immigrant condition. First-generation immigrants carry a heavy burden of downward mobility and insecurity. They start again at the bottom, are handicapped by language, and have thin social capital. Many define “success” as “making money + getting the kids into good schools + staying out of trouble + being seen as reliable by the mainstream.” In this logic, political participation itself is seen as “making trouble,” whereas openly supporting a hard-line conservative politician is seen as “standing with power, which is safer.” This is a form of over-assimilation: in order to enter the mainstream, they are willing to move further to the right than the mainstream in their values, to be “tougher” than some white voters, while at the same time trying desperately to draw a line between themselves and “the weak” and “those on the margins.”
This is the core of the “banana mentality”: using rejection of one’s original group and a heightened distrust of other vulnerable groups to buy an imagined sense of safety.
How Chinese Trump Fans Become “Self-Consistent” in Cognitive Dissonance
Faced with such intense cognitive dissonance, people generally do not immediately discard all their beliefs. They first activate various psychological defense mechanisms to save themselves. Among Chinese Trump fans, a few mechanisms are common.
“It’s all the Democrats’ doing.” Some will say, “If Democrats hadn’t created sanctuary cities and indulged illegal immigrants back then, it wouldn’t have forced the federal government to be this tough now.” This pushes responsibility outward again and preserves the narrative that “Trump is a good man who was only forced into using harsh methods.”
“Just individual cases”: shrinking structural violence into isolated excesses. When confronted with shootings, racial profiling, and knocks on the door, some say, “It’s just a few agents going too far. You can’t blame the whole policy.” This ignores a simple reality: if the system did not encourage, shield, or even reward such behavior, a few agents could not act so brazenly.
“The exception argument”: still believing they are “the safe few.” Even when they see other Asians being questioned or harmed by mistake, they hold fast: “People who really follow the law will be fine. I’m not like those people who get arrested.” This is classic victim-blaming. By putting down the victims, they protect their own fantasy of order.
Turning to conspiracy-driven information sources. Within an information cocoon, it is easy to slide into more extreme explanations: “These reports are all fabricated by the left-wing media. It’s the ‘deep state’ smearing Trump.” Once that switch is flipped, any negative evidence can be rejected, and their faith no longer has to engage with reality.
These defense mechanisms may ease psychological strain in the short term. But in the long run, they only push people further from reality and make it harder to communicate normally with those around them.
Suggestions for Chinese Trump Fans: Walking Out of the Hurt
At this point, one premise needs to be stated clearly: everyone has the right to be wrong in politics. Admitting that one misjudged does not mean one’s character is collapsing. What is truly dangerous is attacking one’s own feelings and common sense in order to avoid admitting a mistake. For those Chinese Trump fans who feel shocked, afraid, and regretful in this wave of enforcement, there are a few concrete paths they can take.
Suggestion One: Separate “hating the Party” from “loving a strongman.”
Opposing the Chinese Communist Party and opposing dictatorship is not wrong. The issue is whether anger at the Chinese system has been misdirected onto an American strongman. A few simple questions can be asked: When criticizing the Chinese Communist Party in the past, was it because it sent people to knock on doors and make arrests at will, held secret trials, and made people live in fear? If similar “door-to-door arrests,” racial profiling, and “federal armed occupation of cities” appear in the United States today, should they not provoke the same disgust?
If the answer is “yes,” then what truly matters in the heart is rights and the rule of law, not any particular political figure. In that case, one’s political stance can be adjusted toward “supporting institutions, not worshipping a strongman.”
Suggestion Two: Use the same standards for all power.
Many will say, “China’s system is authoritarian; America’s is democratic; the two cannot be compared.” It is true that the institutional structures differ and cannot be mapped directly onto each other. But in actual exercises of power, a few basic standards are shared.
Is law enforcement based on individual actions, or on skin color and ethnicity? Do policies undergo judicial review and media scrutiny, or are they designed to dodge transparency as much as possible? Do law enforcement agencies take responsibility for their mistakes, or are they simply shielded by political leaders?
If, on these questions, one’s attitude starts to operate on a double standard—opposing secret police knocking on doors in China, but cheering for ICE going “door to door” in America—then the problem is not “democracy versus dictatorship,” but the way one’s eyes have been dazzled by the charm of a strongman.
Suggestion Three: Step out of the information cocoon and use more channels to see reality.
WeChat friend circles, a handful of YouTube channels, and Chinese-language right-wing media do not represent the whole world. Research has already shown that misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric on certain platforms have significantly shaped Chinese-American political judgments. The practical steps to counter this are simple.
Deliberately cut down input from the same type of channel—at least by half. Deliberately increase reading in mainstream English-language media, local papers, academic institutions, and outlets with differing stances. Learn to verify sources and to see whether a report is backed by actual investigations and court documents, or is merely hearsay and screenshots.
The complaint filed in the Twin Cities against federal actions and the official statements of local governments are all public documents that can be read directly. These materials can help move people from emotional slogans back to facts that can be checked.
Suggestion Four: Take one’s own fear and depression seriously instead of mocking them.
Some people act nonchalant in friend circles: “It’s fine; my status is legal. Let them check.” But the actual psychological reactions are rarely that simple. Hearing a knock at the door late at night can make them tense. Seeing convoys of federal vehicles on the street can make them panic. Thinking about their children being pulled over can make them uneasy. This is not “being dramatic”; it is a normal stress response.
If the following appear: not sleeping well for long stretches, repeated nightmares; chest tightness and shortness of breath whenever the news comes to mind; frequent cycles of self-reproach—“It’s my fault my family is in danger,” “I backed the wrong person”; no longer wanting to talk to friends, no interest in anything—this is already close to clinical post-traumatic stress or depression. At that point, the priority is not continuing to argue online about who is right and who is wrong, but taking care of one’s mental health.
Suggestion Five: Have an honest conversation with the next generation about “picking the wrong side.”
Many Chinese Trump fans’ children are growing up in American schools. Their feelings about race, gender, and immigration differ sharply from those of their parents. In the past few years, many families have been badly torn apart by politics; some have even agreed to “never talk politics.” Yet it is precisely in moments like this that parents have a chance, with one sincere conversation, to teach their children an important lesson.
People can make wrong judgments because their information was limited and their experience was lacking. What matters is that once a mistake is recognized, they have the courage to admit it and adjust, rather than dig in. Political involvement should not be only an outlet for anger; it should include learning to look at institutions and long-term effects.
Such a conversation will protect family relationships better than any concern for “saving face,” and it will show the next generation that a grown adult admitting to a political mistake is a sign of maturity, not of failure.
From Being Chess Piece to Become Citizen
Back to the question at the beginning: when someone knocks and asks, “Do you have Asian neighbors?” society is asking everyone something deeper—who do you really think you are?
If you see yourself only as a chess piece, you may cheer for a strongman today and stay cold toward your compatriots tomorrow, as long as you believe that “the iron fist will never fall on me.” But political choices made on that basis will sooner or later come back to bite.
If you are willing to see yourself as a citizen, you have to learn to use the same standards to scrutinize any power—whether it comes from Beijing or Washington. You have to recognize that rights and dignity do not come from getting close to a strongman but from defending institutions and bottom lines. You also have to accept that infatuation and misjudgment in the past are part of growing up, not stains that can never be washed away.
For Chinese Trump fans, perhaps the real test is not “why did you support Trump in the first place?” but this: when ICE is standing at the door and the news keeps showing Asians being questioned, wronged, and pushed out, are you willing to step out of the fantasy of “loving Trump like a first love” and stand once again alongside other vulnerable groups?
Taking that step may be hard. But only by taking it can one truly leave behind the dual shadows of political and psychological harm. Only then is it possible to stop being someone else’s “yellow-skinned chess piece,” and to become a citizen with judgment and compassion who can join with others in the struggle for justice.