democracy doesn’t work when people vote based on vibes or propaganda feels.
That is the line of reasoning that leads to anti-democratic authoritarianism. Humans use heuristics and emotion to make decisions the vast majority of the time. We might call that a values-based judgment if we are being charitable.
The current leadership uses notions of loyalty and in-group/out-group membership, and their MAGA supporters are swayed by disgust emotions manipulated by propagandists. However, I'll admit that I'm driven by sense of fairness, or even moral outrage at naked corruption and abuse of power, waste, etc. We all do it. When people are hurting, you have to give them a solution that feels good -feels like it will make things better. Sending a strong message that crony capitalists are siphoning all the wealth off the middle-class to make you poorer, and they need to be taxed into the dirt feels like vindication and something that could work, for example. You have to hit both sides of the human coin.