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".
To add to this, the freakout of the intrusion of DSA aligned candidates is causing the usual Democratic circular firing squad, aided and abetted by the Never Trump cohort.
they are right to be freaked out; the dsa is a real threat to democrats and to the democracy movement. there's a reason the gop is spending money to help el sayed and hong; they can't win a general election in two states that went for trump twice....the dsa is more interested in taking out democrats than republicans. source; simon rosenberg, jonathan chait.
This is the scary bit. Even if individual candidates sporting the general 'DS' label running in a Dem primary don't subscribe to some of the "crazier" (to most mainstream voters) aspects of the DSA's official platform (like public ownership of key institutions in finance, housing, energy, major corp.s in other sectors; voting rights for noncitizens; defunding prisons, jails, etc; radical immigration reforms; etc) will get tainted by these crazy aspects anyway. This makes it hard for 'DS' Dem candidates to fare well against the GOP in purple states' general elections (esp. statewide offices and swing districts) even if they handily won the Dem nomination for the seat there.
Trump is just a familiar face to TV fans that Christian Nationalist cult fanatical billionaires are hiding behind to destroy democracy in the US in the name of their preferred folk tale hero. On that level "Trumpism" has been wildly successful. The destruction he has been the Trojan Horse for will be difficult at best to fix even if non-cultists hold all of the branches of government after '28.
It's been a minute since you were a GMF fellow joining us for the Tremezzo conference, Dan, but appreciate this one as it's a point that I've been grappling with, too, that I think is deeply relevant to any rebuilding project -- sharing my take in the spirit of agreement!
A very thoughtful assessment of a very big mess. Here's a suggested test of whether Triumpism has accomplished anything constructive, whether you like it or not: What exactly is Trump's foreign policy? Can it be defined in anything less than 25 or 50 words?
Sure. Trump believes in "spheres of influence", a 19th c. concept that goes well with his tariff mania. The world should be divided between him, Xi, and Putin. That is his foreign policy.
Possibly, but that seems mainly a deduction from his muddy remarks. And his behavior isn't really consistent with an SOI policy. He's shown no particular interest in Latin America. Is Iran or Gaza part of the American sphere? Why does he claim to have resolved a war in southeast Asia?
Why annex Canada but not Mexico?
More likely, I think, he's interested in any piece of land where he can somehow
aggrandize himself. Or build a Trump tower. That's probably about as deep as he can think.
He's been very clear on the sphere of influence thing, remarking on it in several interviews.
Re Mexico and Latin America, he's got an aversion to non-white countries, though he did kidnap the President of Venezuela and install Marco Rubio as viceroy or whatever. Iran has been an American bogyman since 79, so there was a strong base in DC wanting to Bomb Bomb Iran. Netenyahu just pushed him over the line with a story about how easy it would all be. Consistency has never been a Trump strength.
Developmemt opportunities always trump any geopolitical considerations. For Trump, geopolitics is simply a stage where he can be a Great Man. He's been thinking a lot about his place in history lately, his "legacy". As a narcissist, he wants to be remembered as important. Ending wars, conquering territory, building monumemts, all ways to be remembered.
Democrats cannot win elections the way Trump won them. Republicans by and large will tragically vote for their candidate in spite of, or because of, authoritarian and horrific behavior. Most Democrats will not. Such a candidate will never get 50% of voters, and only the GOP can win with a minority.
Yeah, the two-party system is going to have to be chalked up as a mistake at some point; soon hopefully, if some Democrats are looking at how to replicate Trump's "successes".
Trumpism is a label with no clear definition. It implies a thought-out philosophy with goals. Those goals and strategy exist, but Trump has nothing to do with them. They are documented in Project 2025. Trump is merely an engine, a tool, a weapon. Trump himself has simple goals, the glorification and enrichment of Donald J. Trump, billionaire. His various machinations, tariffs, harassment of Greenland and NATO, war with Iran, are focused on his role as a Man of History, To the extent he has a political vision, it is 19th century dogma. Spheres of influence, tariffs, colonies and protectorates, 51st states.
None of this is real in any geopolitical sense. Trump is protected and supported by the Republican party because he supports their goals of ending representative democracy and dismantleing the federal regulatory state. They will put up with A LOT to get closer to those goals. His 19th century manias will vanish when he does.
"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."
Unless they completely end democracy, which they may well do, then the public just has to take it -- or else. This is what we face, and what will happen if enough people don't wake up in time.
That phrase "sustainable sucess" hit me hard. The Republican party has not been about "sustainable sucess" since Nixon. Their basic model has been to move the 19th century football down the field, hunker down through the reaction that puts Democrats in power, then come back and move the football a little further downfield. The goal is to dismantle 20th century governance, and Trump is doing far better at that than any Republican ever.
The concept that what Trump has done can be "easily reversed" is too sanguine. Yes, his executive orders can be superseded and his desecrations of the built environment can be removed. A lot of what he and his supporters have done, however, will be much more difficult to correct.
For example, he has appointed one-third of the Supreme Court, and it has responded by many actions that have entrenched arbitrary presidential power while immunizing the chief executive from criminal consequences. He has greatly deepened U.S. fiscal problems, leaving a successor Democratic regime straitened for funds. His policies on health, immigration, and foreign affairs have devastated countless lives while leaving the country in a much worse position to deal with future threats -- for example, the next pandemic. He has shown that vast elements of America's governance are based on norms, not laws, and can be destroyed by any ruler with the determination to do so.
Most importantly, Trump has utterly corrupted what is still the country's dominant political party. The entire Republican leadership class has spent years devoting itself to lies, cruelty, corruption, and authoritarianism. They have been sustained in this course by tens of millions of voters. Few of these people will ever muster the character to repent what they have done, and they will remain a resource for further degeneracy. If there is any plan for addressing this moral, political, and cultural rot, it seems well concealed.
We should not tell ourselves falsehoods about how easy it will be to overcome these consequences of Trumpism. It won't be easy, and it won't be quick. For some elements, there is no obvious feasible remedy at all. That's the extent of the task Trump will leave behind.
There are idiots, errr I mean people, who actually think/argue that Democrats can just "do a Trump"? And they're in positions with the DNC with some sort of power/influence?
Agreed. Trump’s record is inheriting and destroying or attempting to creat and failing. Not a methodology to follow for anyone unless their career aspiration is carnival barker.
"trumpism" is no more than the man himself, full stop. trumpist "ideology" is in the grubby, grasping, neofascist hands of Project 2025, and acolytes within the WH such as Miller, Homan, Carr, Bessent, Nutlick, and that ilk. And how long-lived the radical programs and projects will survive Himself is entirely problematic, as many GOPers still owe their positions in Congress to the MAGA "base", where the latter clearly will be an influence beyond their Lord and Master's merciful departure.
But, as noted in the above article, gross and massive incompetence stalks trump 2.0, and that in itself will be self-limiting as to damage done to this country's institutions, and democracy itself...we've seen this time and time again by the utterly laughable and legally foolish court appearances by the jokers representing DoJ, DHS, et al, pilloried thence by legions of district and appellate judges. And trump's much-
vaunted "tariffs" thrust was finally dispensed with by none other than "His" Scotus.
No, the most obvious and singular attribute of "trumpism" is unabashed corruption, self-dealing, and self-enrichment, with the trump family gorging themselves on the American taxpayer, on scheming and grifting, and essentially setting themselves up for life by banking ill-gotten gains. Sure, there's the "revenge tour" sideshow, causing numbers of people to expend time and money defending themselves, and state governments defending their stewardship of the public's right to vote, but again, these are major distractions away from the wholesale grift and graft carrying on non-stop since the POS was sworn in for his second term.
Look past all the EOs, and what remains? Unprecedented looting of the public treasury, and of gullible private citizens' own bank accounts by carny-level scams...that's the trump legacy, full stop.
Here are some data points to ponder while we wait for wiredog to respond. In 2019, John Dean and Bob Altemeyer commissioned a poll which they wrote about in their book Authoritarian Nightmare. This included a prejudice scale with 24 statements. People being polled were asked to rate their agreement with each statement on a scale of 1 to 9. Scores from white respondents:
53 for respondents who strong disapproved of Trump
87 for respondents who somewhat disapproved of Trump
114 for respondents who somewhat approved of Trump
134 for respondents who strongly approved of Trump
Trump supporters showed up as more prejudiced on every single item, not just items related to race. They expressed a higher agreement with “Two really bad things about the Jews is that they killed Jesus, and they secretly control the world’s banks and economy.” They expressed a lower level of agreement with “Christianity has very unjustly persecuted the Jews over the centuries.” But of course they also expressed a higher level of agreement that “Black people are just naturally more violent than white people,” and that “Instead of complaining and protesting all the time, African-Americans should be grateful for how good they have it here compared to where they came from.”
So Trump supporters are by and large more racist than average, which is unsurprising but it’s still useful showing that to be the case. It’s not just black people that they have a problem with; they reject the item stating that, “The more diverse America becomes, with different people with different religions and heritages from everywhere else in the world, the stronger it will be.”
a dsa flunkie. the dsa are not democrats, they just glom onto the dem infrastructure because they cannot get elected on an independent line. their words. the dsa are not progressives either. they embrace too many dictators to be progressive or pro-democracy. platner was recruited by the fight agency, a couple of elite eggheads who barely vetted the guy, and who are the brains behind, soon to be nominee and michigan senate loser el sayed.
lol, sorry, they are yours, they have been part of the coalition since at least the days of Henry Wallace, not to be confused with Alabama segregationist, George Wallace
BTW Wallace's Democratic roots go back to the early 20th century.
I agree. I would also venture to suggest that as the American ethos is "freedom", a number of Americans admire Trump for the law breaking, ethical breaches and all of the other corruption as they (not so ) secretly wish they could do the same.
It's been a moment since you were a GMF fellow joining us for the Tremezzo conference, Dan, but appreciate this one as it's a point that I've been grappling with, too, that I think is deeply relevant to any rebuilding project -- sharing my take in the spirit of agreement!
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.
To add to this, the freakout of the intrusion of DSA aligned candidates is causing the usual Democratic circular firing squad, aided and abetted by the Never Trump cohort.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
they are right to be freaked out; the dsa is a real threat to democrats and to the democracy movement. there's a reason the gop is spending money to help el sayed and hong; they can't win a general election in two states that went for trump twice....the dsa is more interested in taking out democrats than republicans. source; simon rosenberg, jonathan chait.
This is the scary bit. Even if individual candidates sporting the general 'DS' label running in a Dem primary don't subscribe to some of the "crazier" (to most mainstream voters) aspects of the DSA's official platform (like public ownership of key institutions in finance, housing, energy, major corp.s in other sectors; voting rights for noncitizens; defunding prisons, jails, etc; radical immigration reforms; etc) will get tainted by these crazy aspects anyway. This makes it hard for 'DS' Dem candidates to fare well against the GOP in purple states' general elections (esp. statewide offices and swing districts) even if they handily won the Dem nomination for the seat there.
Trump is just a familiar face to TV fans that Christian Nationalist cult fanatical billionaires are hiding behind to destroy democracy in the US in the name of their preferred folk tale hero. On that level "Trumpism" has been wildly successful. The destruction he has been the Trojan Horse for will be difficult at best to fix even if non-cultists hold all of the branches of government after '28.
It's been a minute since you were a GMF fellow joining us for the Tremezzo conference, Dan, but appreciate this one as it's a point that I've been grappling with, too, that I think is deeply relevant to any rebuilding project -- sharing my take in the spirit of agreement!
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/no-we-do-not-need-a-good-doge
A very thoughtful assessment of a very big mess. Here's a suggested test of whether Triumpism has accomplished anything constructive, whether you like it or not: What exactly is Trump's foreign policy? Can it be defined in anything less than 25 or 50 words?
What ever supports the grift?
Probably the only through-line that works!
Sure. Trump believes in "spheres of influence", a 19th c. concept that goes well with his tariff mania. The world should be divided between him, Xi, and Putin. That is his foreign policy.
Possibly, but that seems mainly a deduction from his muddy remarks. And his behavior isn't really consistent with an SOI policy. He's shown no particular interest in Latin America. Is Iran or Gaza part of the American sphere? Why does he claim to have resolved a war in southeast Asia?
Why annex Canada but not Mexico?
More likely, I think, he's interested in any piece of land where he can somehow
aggrandize himself. Or build a Trump tower. That's probably about as deep as he can think.
He's been very clear on the sphere of influence thing, remarking on it in several interviews.
Re Mexico and Latin America, he's got an aversion to non-white countries, though he did kidnap the President of Venezuela and install Marco Rubio as viceroy or whatever. Iran has been an American bogyman since 79, so there was a strong base in DC wanting to Bomb Bomb Iran. Netenyahu just pushed him over the line with a story about how easy it would all be. Consistency has never been a Trump strength.
Developmemt opportunities always trump any geopolitical considerations. For Trump, geopolitics is simply a stage where he can be a Great Man. He's been thinking a lot about his place in history lately, his "legacy". As a narcissist, he wants to be remembered as important. Ending wars, conquering territory, building monumemts, all ways to be remembered.
OK, he's a highly variable, opportunistic, self-aggrandizing, racist SOI kind of guy. I can buy that. And that's less than 25 words.
Democrats cannot win elections the way Trump won them. Republicans by and large will tragically vote for their candidate in spite of, or because of, authoritarian and horrific behavior. Most Democrats will not. Such a candidate will never get 50% of voters, and only the GOP can win with a minority.
Yeah, the two-party system is going to have to be chalked up as a mistake at some point; soon hopefully, if some Democrats are looking at how to replicate Trump's "successes".
Trumpism is a label with no clear definition. It implies a thought-out philosophy with goals. Those goals and strategy exist, but Trump has nothing to do with them. They are documented in Project 2025. Trump is merely an engine, a tool, a weapon. Trump himself has simple goals, the glorification and enrichment of Donald J. Trump, billionaire. His various machinations, tariffs, harassment of Greenland and NATO, war with Iran, are focused on his role as a Man of History, To the extent he has a political vision, it is 19th century dogma. Spheres of influence, tariffs, colonies and protectorates, 51st states.
None of this is real in any geopolitical sense. Trump is protected and supported by the Republican party because he supports their goals of ending representative democracy and dismantleing the federal regulatory state. They will put up with A LOT to get closer to those goals. His 19th century manias will vanish when he does.
"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."
Unless they completely end democracy, which they may well do, then the public just has to take it -- or else. This is what we face, and what will happen if enough people don't wake up in time.
That phrase "sustainable sucess" hit me hard. The Republican party has not been about "sustainable sucess" since Nixon. Their basic model has been to move the 19th century football down the field, hunker down through the reaction that puts Democrats in power, then come back and move the football a little further downfield. The goal is to dismantle 20th century governance, and Trump is doing far better at that than any Republican ever.
The concept that what Trump has done can be "easily reversed" is too sanguine. Yes, his executive orders can be superseded and his desecrations of the built environment can be removed. A lot of what he and his supporters have done, however, will be much more difficult to correct.
For example, he has appointed one-third of the Supreme Court, and it has responded by many actions that have entrenched arbitrary presidential power while immunizing the chief executive from criminal consequences. He has greatly deepened U.S. fiscal problems, leaving a successor Democratic regime straitened for funds. His policies on health, immigration, and foreign affairs have devastated countless lives while leaving the country in a much worse position to deal with future threats -- for example, the next pandemic. He has shown that vast elements of America's governance are based on norms, not laws, and can be destroyed by any ruler with the determination to do so.
Most importantly, Trump has utterly corrupted what is still the country's dominant political party. The entire Republican leadership class has spent years devoting itself to lies, cruelty, corruption, and authoritarianism. They have been sustained in this course by tens of millions of voters. Few of these people will ever muster the character to repent what they have done, and they will remain a resource for further degeneracy. If there is any plan for addressing this moral, political, and cultural rot, it seems well concealed.
We should not tell ourselves falsehoods about how easy it will be to overcome these consequences of Trumpism. It won't be easy, and it won't be quick. For some elements, there is no obvious feasible remedy at all. That's the extent of the task Trump will leave behind.
There are idiots, errr I mean people, who actually think/argue that Democrats can just "do a Trump"? And they're in positions with the DNC with some sort of power/influence?
Yeesh, things are worse than even I thought.
Agreed. Trump’s record is inheriting and destroying or attempting to creat and failing. Not a methodology to follow for anyone unless their career aspiration is carnival barker.
The "He has a point" democrats are particularly scary from the outside the US perspective.
They only seem to disagree with his implementation, not policy direction. There is no reset after.
"trumpism" is no more than the man himself, full stop. trumpist "ideology" is in the grubby, grasping, neofascist hands of Project 2025, and acolytes within the WH such as Miller, Homan, Carr, Bessent, Nutlick, and that ilk. And how long-lived the radical programs and projects will survive Himself is entirely problematic, as many GOPers still owe their positions in Congress to the MAGA "base", where the latter clearly will be an influence beyond their Lord and Master's merciful departure.
But, as noted in the above article, gross and massive incompetence stalks trump 2.0, and that in itself will be self-limiting as to damage done to this country's institutions, and democracy itself...we've seen this time and time again by the utterly laughable and legally foolish court appearances by the jokers representing DoJ, DHS, et al, pilloried thence by legions of district and appellate judges. And trump's much-
vaunted "tariffs" thrust was finally dispensed with by none other than "His" Scotus.
No, the most obvious and singular attribute of "trumpism" is unabashed corruption, self-dealing, and self-enrichment, with the trump family gorging themselves on the American taxpayer, on scheming and grifting, and essentially setting themselves up for life by banking ill-gotten gains. Sure, there's the "revenge tour" sideshow, causing numbers of people to expend time and money defending themselves, and state governments defending their stewardship of the public's right to vote, but again, these are major distractions away from the wholesale grift and graft carrying on non-stop since the POS was sworn in for his second term.
Look past all the EOs, and what remains? Unprecedented looting of the public treasury, and of gullible private citizens' own bank accounts by carny-level scams...that's the trump legacy, full stop.
Trumpism cannot be replicated by Democrats. The Republicans have cornered the market of incredibly stupid, uneducated, racist voters.
You need to meet more Democrats.
got any data? i'll wait.
Here are some data points to ponder while we wait for wiredog to respond. In 2019, John Dean and Bob Altemeyer commissioned a poll which they wrote about in their book Authoritarian Nightmare. This included a prejudice scale with 24 statements. People being polled were asked to rate their agreement with each statement on a scale of 1 to 9. Scores from white respondents:
53 for respondents who strong disapproved of Trump
87 for respondents who somewhat disapproved of Trump
114 for respondents who somewhat approved of Trump
134 for respondents who strongly approved of Trump
Trump supporters showed up as more prejudiced on every single item, not just items related to race. They expressed a higher agreement with “Two really bad things about the Jews is that they killed Jesus, and they secretly control the world’s banks and economy.” They expressed a lower level of agreement with “Christianity has very unjustly persecuted the Jews over the centuries.” But of course they also expressed a higher level of agreement that “Black people are just naturally more violent than white people,” and that “Instead of complaining and protesting all the time, African-Americans should be grateful for how good they have it here compared to where they came from.”
So Trump supporters are by and large more racist than average, which is unsurprising but it’s still useful showing that to be the case. It’s not just black people that they have a problem with; they reject the item stating that, “The more diverse America becomes, with different people with different religions and heritages from everywhere else in the world, the stronger it will be.”
Graham Platner
a dsa flunkie. the dsa are not democrats, they just glom onto the dem infrastructure because they cannot get elected on an independent line. their words. the dsa are not progressives either. they embrace too many dictators to be progressive or pro-democracy. platner was recruited by the fight agency, a couple of elite eggheads who barely vetted the guy, and who are the brains behind, soon to be nominee and michigan senate loser el sayed.
There was a D next to his name.
lol, sorry, they are yours, they have been part of the coalition since at least the days of Henry Wallace, not to be confused with Alabama segregationist, George Wallace
BTW Wallace's Democratic roots go back to the early 20th century.
...got kicked out of the race. Republicans are actively recruiting these guys...
I agree. I would also venture to suggest that as the American ethos is "freedom", a number of Americans admire Trump for the law breaking, ethical breaches and all of the other corruption as they (not so ) secretly wish they could do the same.
It's been a moment since you were a GMF fellow joining us for the Tremezzo conference, Dan, but appreciate this one as it's a point that I've been grappling with, too, that I think is deeply relevant to any rebuilding project -- sharing my take in the spirit of agreement!
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/no-we-do-not-need-a-good-doge
I’m disappointed that you’re not a Democrat.