In the spring of 2021, an opinion essay in The New York Times asked a question that had been hanging over American conservatism since 2016: whether the movement bearing Donald Trump's name is an ideology at all. The author concludes it is not, and that what looked like a doctrine was a man, whose defiance and appetites were mistaken for principle. Whether a movement can outlive the force that formed it is a question older than this moment, and the essay leaves it open for the party that must now answer it.
Trumpism Has No Heirs, Because It Was Never a Policy. It Was Donald Trump
He did not have a policy platform, because he was the policy platform.
Mark
The headline says Trumpism has no heirs. What's the core claim?
Mimi
That there was never a doctrine to inherit. The author says Trumpism is a retconning, a tidy story laid over a career of statements and tweets that really came from whatever Trump was thinking about at the moment.
Mark
But people talk about populist nationalism as the substance underneath.
Mimi
The essay separates the two. Populist nationalism has a long history, with Pat Buchanan as the example, and it doesn't need any one person. Trumpism, the author says, does.
Luke
Worth flagging that this is an opinion essay. The claim that voters backed Trump regardless of ideology is the author's interpretation, not something the piece demonstrates with polling.
Mark
What does the piece point to as evidence?
Mimi
The Romney contrast, mainly. Romney ran as "severely conservative" in 2012 and lost; Trump redefined conservatism and won. And Trump's record: he was a standard Republican on things like opposing a higher minimum wage, with no penalty from his base.
Luke
The line that Trump would probably have won running as a severely conservative nominee is speculation. It's a counterfactual, and nothing in the piece can confirm it.
Mark
So what's the forward-looking point?
Mimi
That copying his positions won't copy his appeal. If the movement was the man, an heir inherits the policies but not the loyalty.
Luke
Which is a prediction. The essay doesn't say how any specific Republican would fare, so that's still unknown.
Il Polso
- A columnist in The New York Times argues that Trumpism has no stable policy core, only Donald Trump himself.
- Conservative institutions like Heritage and National Review find their settled orthodoxy overridden by a candidate who redefined the label.
- Voters rewarded Trump for being Trump, even when he broke with Republican tradition on issues such as the minimum wage.
- Populist nationalism, traced to figures like Pat Buchanan, predates him and survives without him, which makes Trumpism's dependence on one man stand out.
- The question now is whether any heir can borrow the loyalty, or whether the appeal dies with the man who carried it.
In the spring of 2021, an opinion essay in The New York Times asked a question that had been hanging over American conservatism since 2016: whether the movement bearing Donald Trump's name is an ideology at all. The author concludes it is not, and that what looked like a doctrine was a man, whose defiance and appetites were mistaken for principle. Whether a movement can outlive the force that formed it is a question older than this moment, and the essay leaves it open for the party that must now answer it.
In early 2016, Donald Trump told ABC News that the party he wanted to lead was the Republican Party, not the Conservative Party. A New York Times opinion essay published in March 2021 treats that remark as the key to his rise, and to why the movement named after him may have no one to inherit it.
The author's central claim is blunt: Trumpism is not a body of policy. What exists is Donald Trump. His statements, outbursts and posts are presented as if they flowed from a foundational program, when they really came from whatever was on his mind.
The argument starts with the conservatism he ran against, the one that think tanks and magazines like Heritage, AEI and National Review had seemingly settled on. Many voters did not share its wariness toward public health care and family payments, and Trump sold them a conservatism those institutions had never agreed upon. Mitt Romney ran as severely conservative in 2012 and lost. Trump redefined the label to suit himself and won.
The essay separates Trumpism from populist nationalism, a long American tradition carried by Pat Buchanan and other paleoconservatives, which does not depend on any single person. Trumpism does. In office, the author argues, Trump governed as an ordinary Republican on many issues, such as opposing a higher minimum wage, and his supporters did not punish him. He only had to be Donald Trump.
The essay's implication is that a successor cannot simply pick up a program, because there was never one. It is an opinion piece, and its reading of voter motives is an argument, not a finding. What to watch is whether any Republican can draw the same loyalty by borrowing the policies, or whether the appeal belonged to one man.
In early 2016, Donald Trump sat down with ABC News and offered a line that has aged into a thesis. The party he was trying to lead, he said, is called the Republican Party, not the Conservative Party. A New York Times opinion essay published in March 2021 treats that remark as the key to understanding his rise, and to understanding why the movement named after him may have no one to inherit it.
The essay's central claim is blunt: Trumpism does not exist as a body of policy. What exists is Donald Trump. The author calls "Trumpism" a retconning of his path to the presidency, a version of events in which his statements, outbursts and tweets grew out of a foundational program, rather than out of whatever was on his mind at the moment. In the author's account, what Trump stood for was Trump, and what Trumpism amounts to is Trump.
The argument begins with the conservatism Trump ran against. The one that think tanks and magazines such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and National Review had seemingly settled on is wary of government-provided health care, and of payments meant to encourage family formation, for fear of enabling dependency. Many voters, the author notes, do not share that wariness. The conservatism Trump sold them was not the one those institutions had agreed upon.
The contrast with Mitt Romney is the essay's sharpest comparison. In 2012, Romney campaigned as "severely conservative" and lost. Trump campaigned on a self-serving redefinition of what being conservative even meant, and won. The author goes a step further, suggesting that had Trump run as a severely conservative nominee, he probably would have taken the nomination just the same.
The essay is careful not to confuse this with populist nationalism, the label most often attached to Trumpism. That tradition has a long history in the country. Pat Buchanan, a former Nixon assistant and political commentator, and other paleoconservatives have for decades combined America First isolationist rhetoric with distrust of cultural and political elites. The author's point is that populist nationalism does not depend on any single person. Trumpism, by contrast, does.
The evidence offered comes from his time in office. Trump had no coherent platform, the author argues, because he was the platform: a middle finger to perceived enemies and a bulwark against real or imagined progressive assault. Many Republican presidents, the essay says, would have moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, backed a capital-gains tax cut, or waged a Kulturkampf against "cancel culture" and other wedge issues, the kind of unwinnable and unlosable fights suited to the Twitter trenches.
On many issues, in fact, Trump governed as a remarkably standard Republican. His opposition to raising the minimum wage is the example given. His voters and allies did not penalize him for it. He did not have to deliver on the promises of Trumpism to keep their support; he only had to be Donald Trump.
The implication, which the essay opens with in the line "the king is dead, long live the king," is that a successor cannot simply pick up the program, because there was never a program to pick up. This is an opinion piece, and its reading of voter motives is an argument rather than a finding. What to watch is whether any Republican figure can draw the same loyalty by borrowing the policies, or whether, as the author suggests, the appeal belonged to one man.
Citazioni salienti
This is called the Republican Party, it's not called the Conservative Party.— Donald Trump, to ABC News, early 2016
Vuoi la storia completa?
Leggi l'originale su The New York Times ↗
Politics & Governance