How Democratic Elites Think About Trump
And whether they are right to think this way.
One of the ways that the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World tries to stay sane is tuning out debates and disagreements about the future of the Democratic Party.
In part this is because I’m not a Democrat; it’s literally not my party. For me, it is the party of Not Donald Trump, which means it’s the perfect vessel to oppose Trump, his misbegotten and illiberal policies, and the enablers who now constitute the overwhelming bulk of the GOP. In part this is because whatever the merits of such a conversation, these debates tend to bring out the worst qualities in most of the participants. In part this is because I find other stories to be more important and more interesting.
Over the past eighteen months, however, I have interacted with enough Democratic Party elites and wonks to realize that something about their intramural discourse has been nagging at me. It was difficult to identify it exactly it was until MS NOW’s Chris Hayes posted this:
Yes, this is the precise way to frame this question. So let me share my attempt at an answer.
The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World was unimpressed with Trump’s first term and is even less impressed by Trump’s second term. But clearly some Democrats believe that they’re re-living a season three episode of Star Trek, viewing Trumpism as successful political and ideological project that can be harnessed for their own policy purposes. A lot of Democratic Party trade wonks, for example, sound envious when they discuss Trump’s myriad initiatives. I have heard elected Democrats marvel at Trump’s ability to attract populist support, hoping to copy his formula as a program for campaign success.
This grudging admiration hinges on whether Trumpism should be viewed as a political and ideological success. And while I am pessimistic about Trumpism, I acknowledge that there are valid reasons to see if lessons can be learned. As a political project, Donald Trump has won two presidential elections and consistently exceeded his polling numbers. He has survived two impeachments, four criminal indictments, and a variety of civil suits and has been undeterred in remaking the executive branch in his own image.
Ideologically, Trump has undeniably shattered a variety of policy and political norms. There was a functioning liberal international order when Trump was inaugurated in 2017; that has been shredded. The Beltway consensus on trade liberalization, democracy promotion, and human rights is no more. Trump succeeded in fostering a new hawkish consensus on China, even if he is not adhering to that worldview himself. Trump has successfully deconstructed much of the administrative state.
These are all significant outcomes. So I get why some Democrats think Trumpism might be worthy studying to see if it can be replicated.
The problem is that it cannot be replicated by Democrats.
I don’t mean that the Democrats are not organized or ruthless enough to execute Trumpism with a human face.1 What I mean is that the Democratic Party’s approach to government is antithetical to a Trumpist approach.
Consider that Trump’s political success has largely been his two elections and not much else. In 2016 he lost the popular vote by close to 3 million votes and eked out an Electoral College victory. In 2024 he improved on his 2016 run but still failed to crack 50% of the popular vote despite Democrats changing nominees. It is politically impressive that he won despite his political inexperience and flouting of norms. But these political wins have mostly been to service Donald Trump himself.
Furthermore, within the GOP there is no obvious political successor to his mantle. I’m unconvinced that the Democratic Party takeaway from this is to try to copy what this guy has been doing.
Furthermore, Trump’s effect on the GOP has also been corrosive. Politico’s Kathy Gilsinan recently interviewed senior Republican policy wonks about the current state of the GOP policy project, and came away with this take:
To conservative critics in and out of government, many of whom ascribe to more traditional, pre-MAGA Republican beliefs, some such institutions have spent the last decade selecting for rigid conformity to Trumpist ideology over more typical markers of expertise. Maybe that helps for enforcing the party line in the new GOP. But these critics fear a decline of merit and skill, along with a tolerance for darker ideologies that could cripple the party’s ability to govern in the long run.
Conversations with four senior Republican congressional staffers, as well as think tank scholars, Heritage expats, academics who study think tanks and up-and-coming young Republicans reflected a widening generational split and mutual distrust over the issue.
“Everyone knows what the problem is: The organizations that bring young staffers to Washington, D.C. have spent the last decade prioritizing blind ideological loyalty instead of competence or intelligence,” said a senior GOP congressional staffer, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel issues. “We have a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots.”
Maybe I am overestimating the Democratic Party, but I don’t think any political project that yields a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots is one with much chance of sustainable success.
This holds with particular force when evaluating Trumpism as an ideological project. The thing about Trumpism is that it is very good at destroying norms and institutions and abjectly incompetent at creating new structures. None of Trump’s new organizations have done much of anything beyond enrich Trump and his family. Most of his foreign policy initiatives have amounted to nothing — or worse than nothing. Attempts to apply any kind of intellectual coherence to Trumpism inevitably founder. At the beginning of the year some folks were worried that Trump’s Board of Peace would supplant the United Nations. That notion seems laughable today.
Back in 2019 I pointed out the asymmetry of Trump’s politics. During his first term he was very good at destroying things but could not create:
Trump’s brand of populism has succeeded more in the enervation of existing institutions dedicated to liberal internationalism than in the creation of populist alternatives. Through a mixture of intention and incompetence, the Trump administration has succeeded in weakening foreign policy bureaucracies. While the institutional foundations for populism are likely to remain weak in the future, this administration appear poised to succeed in eroding the capabilities of existing institutions, making any post-Trump restoration of liberal internationalism more difficult. This suggests that the literature on bureaucratic control cannot treat all ideas equally. Some ideas are more likely to thrive in a de-institutionalized environment than others.
If you won’t believe a political scientist, believe the reporter who has covered Trump the longest. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman spoke to Ezra Klein last week about Regime Change, and articulated what Trump actually wants to achieve:
I could answer that pretty clearly in 2019 and 2020 — there were things that he still wanted to achieve. If there are things that he wants to achieve beyond just sort of not being Herbert Hoover, as he would say — meaning, with a giant global crisis — not really.
Look, he has resumed his trade war, as you said. I think he’d like to achieve getting out of Iran. I think he would like to figure out an end to the war that he started. But that’s not an achievement. That’s a reaction to his own behavior, as we had started this episode….
It was quite clear when we were sitting with him — and we write about that in the epilogue of the book — but he is playing for history, capital-G great man of history — to be remembered by one name, to have left a mark on the world that is just different than a typical president, or what he would say is a normal president.
That doesn’t involve the boring work of trying to pass a bill. That doesn’t involve the boring work of going to Iowa to talk about X, Y, Z, although his numbers are not great in Iowa now, either. This is fundamentally less interesting to him.
The fact that Trump cannot comprehend that historical policy shifts are more likely with legislation than without gets at the core of Trumpism’s problems. He can implement a slapdash policy that embodies his gut instincts. Those policies can easily be reversed, however.
The thing about Democrats is that they want to create new policies and new structures. There is nothing in Trumpism that will help then do those things better. So even if one views it as a political and ideological success — which I don’t — it does not translate into anything useful for Democrats.
At least that’s my take.
A very good column. If the Democratic elite try to distill and utilize what is good about Trump's "populism" the only thing I can really see is anger and disillusionment. Those are not things that I would want to cultivate or enable.
This is the punch line: “We have a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots.”
As you rightly say, the Democrats can't replicate this.
My worry is that while there are Republican operatives who recognize this, the generation of rabod incompetent idiots is not going anywhere anytime soon. This will take a generation (at least) to sort, and that presumes you stop hiring "rabid, incompetent idiots". Who's going to be doing the hiring of the next generation of Republican aparatchiks? Oh yeah, those self-same "rabid, incompetent idiots".
Now I am fully depressed.