Trump Isn’t Bound by Trumpism

Adam Kirsch: “Like pornography, we feel that we know Trumpism when we see it, yet after a decade, it’s still remarkably hard to define. That blurriness has been an opportunity for political entrepreneurs who have tried, one after another, to shape Trumpism in the image of their own ideological beliefs…”

“Trump delivered something for each of these groups: tariffs for the economic populists, Ivy League lawsuits for the anti-wokers, a weakened NATO for the America Firsters. But every version of Trumpism has eventually foundered on the rock of its namesake. Just as Karl Marx insisted that he was not a Marxist, so Trump has never been a Trumpist—the former because no one understood his theories of politics as well as he did himself; the latter because he has never had a theory of politics.”

“Trump has a few consistent political instincts—above all, protectionism and hostility toward immigration and immigrants—but he has never felt bound by the principles of Trumpism, however defined. Saying ‘America First’ doesn’t mean he won’t start a war in Iran; saying he is pro-worker doesn’t mean he won’t pump crypto and tech stocks.”