Trumpism Explained
16th December 2017
BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front): Ain’t no such thing as ‘Trumpism’, and anybody who uses that word as if it were a thing is an idiot.
Our political class is wired to look behind ‘positions’ to ‘principles’, as if every person running for office, or pushing an issue through the political process, were one of Plato’s Philosopher Kings with a coherent deeply-considered philosophy that informs all of their issues, positions, and activity. Any non-superficial exposure to actual politicians, living or dead, exposes this as nonsense. Of the people you’ve heard of, maybe Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were such; no other U.S. President in the 20th (or 21st) century fit this model.
The Republican chattering class, from George Will right down to the people who write for National Review, spend about 90% of their time wringing their hands about the fact that ‘Trump isn’t a conservative!’, as if that actually had anything to do with the U.S. Presidency, American politics, or the Republican Party. The problem is that each and every one of the people parroting that phrase has a different view of what ‘a conservative’ is, and none of them agree. Nor is there any reason to think that being (or not being) ‘a conservative’ has something to do with being a Republican, much less with being an effective U.S. President.
Trump is not ‘a conservative’, in the same sense that William F. Buckley or Ronald Reagan was ‘a conservative’. Trump is like every other American: Conservative in some things, liberal in others, and God-knows-what regarding matters in between.
What Trump is, is what every other American corporate CEO is (or ought to be): A problem-solver. Trump sees that America has certain problems, problems that aren’t being fixed, and he’s decided that he wants to take a crack at fixing them. That’s all there is.
If that means doing ‘conservative’ things, then that’s what he’ll do; if it means doing non-conservative things, then he’s perfectly willing to go there. This pragmatic approach drives the American political chattering class nuts. They keep looking for some sort of consistency, and they’re not going to find it, any more than the kid given a pile of horse manure for his birthday is going to find a pony underneath it all, no matter how convinced he may be that there has to be one.
As a result, the fact that what Trump has been doing so far is ‘a conservative’ wet-dream is being abandoned by the roadside while the people who ought to be out partying about it are instead engaged in a snipe-hunt for some sort of ideological consistency to the Trump program. I am reminded of the (probably spurious) tale of Talleyrand during his tenure as Bishop of Autun — when he asked his chancellor why a certain priest had not attended a local church synod, he was told that the fellow had died. ‘Well, that would explain it,’ he is said to have responded, ‘… but I wonder what his real reason was.’ The right-wing chattering class keep looking for ‘the real reason’ behind what Trump is doing and ignoring the reasons that are in front of their faces.
Trump’s critics have the same psycological problem. The essence of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ is the persistent delusion that because Trump does X he is some sort of X-ist, without giving serious consideration to the fact that in this particular situation Trump decided to do X but in a different situation might just as readily decided to do Y or Z. The ruling Washington establishment keeps running all over the map trying to cope with the fact that Trump keeps sneaking out of the little ideological boxes that everybody from the New York Times to CNN keeps trying to cram him into. They just finish crying ‘He’s a racist!’ when he invites a black family to visit the White House. They just finish crying ‘He’s a sexist!’ when he appoints a woman to a significant job like Ambassador to the UN or Press Secretary. They just finish crying ‘He hates Jews!’ while ignoring the fact that his daughter, son-in-law (whom they hate), and grandkids are Jewish. There is no sort of popular Leftists bugaboo ‘-ism’ that has been applied to Trump that doesn’t have multiple counter-examples demonstrating that that particular shoe doesn’t fit. It makes their heads explode and provides a great deal of entertainment for the people in the stands, but there’s no future in it.
So don’t go looking for the mythical Trumpism where it isn’t to be found. Whenever Trump does something, ask yourself ‘What problem is he trying to solve?’ and you’ll be better off.