The Trumpian Trash Factor
A neglected aspect of the 45th president’s political magic touch—and what it tells about his likeliest successor
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I’ve spent the better part of the past seven years trying to unravel how Donald Trump managed to take over one of America’s two major parties and get himself elected president. The answer isn’t obvious. Trump is a lot like prior Republican presidents in some ways and very different from them in many others. Getting the analysis right requires making fine-grained distinctions, which is something I think is important. I’ve tried to do that with regard to Trump from the beginning of his political turn. This post is my latest attempt.
The Policy Factor
Because I’m an intellectual with a Ph.D. in political science, I tend to gravitate to explanations that emphasize ideas and public policy.
In my years as a columnist at The Week, I wrote a lot of pieces attributing Trump’s rise to his unorthodox policy positions. He broke from the hawkish internationalism in foreign policy that had been the default in both parties since the end of World War II and had completely dominated Republican thinking since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He also rejected the GOP consensus in favor of free trade and relatively open immigration, while also backing away (at least in his campaign rhetoric) from the economic libertarianism of the party’s Paul Ryan wing, which favored making sharp cuts to social services and in some cases privatizing them.
Put it all together, and we’re left with a repudiation of both Reaganite and neoconservative assumptions in favor of a revival of the paleoconservative outlook that had been repressed in the GOP since the early days of the Cold War.
There’s definitely something to this account of Trump’s appeal, especially in light of events over the decade and half prior to the 2016 election—above all, the disaster of the Iraq War, the interminable slow-bleed of the Afghanistan military misadventure, and the financial crisis of 2008 and deep recession that followed. For those in the GOP angered by all of these failures of the George W. Bush administration, Trump’s alternative mix of policy positions sounded fresh and long overdue.
The Bellicosity Factor
But what about all those policy continuities between Trump and his Republican predecessors? I’m mostly talking about the issues wrapped up with the culture war, especially when it comes to appointing judges who affirm conservative constitutionalism. Trump didn’t just stick with those priorities; he emphasized them even more than his predecessors did, adding in a lot of additional vitriol. That points to the second factor in Trump’s appeal: his combativeness.
We heard about it throughout the 2016 GOP primaries: “He fights!”—showing that the Republican base didn’t just want a pivot away from the policy mix that had held for decades. It also wanted a tribune who would apply greater aggression to cultural conflicts. Trump most certainly did this—in his public remarks, in his Twitter feed, and at his often raucous, well-attended rallies, both before and during his presidency.
Put these two factors together, and we have a solid explanation for Trump’s rise—and also one that helps to explain why Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the only Republican who comes anywhere close to challenging the 45th president in early polls of the 2024 race. (“Anywhere close” usually means Trump merely laps him, with every other hypothetical challenger languishing in single digits.)
As governor, DeSantis has combined relative moderation on social policy and spending with extremely aggressive prosecution of the culture war, both at the level of policy and in his public rhetoric—and the GOP base, not to mention the policy intellectuals and anti-anti-Trump writers at National Review and other conservative-movement media outlets, likes it a lot.
The Trash Factor
But is this sufficient? Until last Friday, I thought so. That’s when I read the second item in Jonathan Last’s consistently excellent daily Bulwark newsletter, The Triad. Building on observations from his colleague Sarah Longwell (who says she got them from journalist Marc Caputo in their conversation on The Focus Group podcast), Last begins by noting that “the nature of Trump’s support is quantitatively and qualitatively different than any other kind of ‘support’ you see in American politics.” How so? Trump was unpredictable. “You knew that when Trump took the stage, anything could happen. Depending on your view, this was either energizing or terrifying.” A significant faction of Republican voters positively loved this about Trump. They weren’t just energized by it. They adored it and quickly became addicted to it.
Would DeSantis give them their fix? Last doesn’t think so. The Florida governor “feels like a pretty standard-issue politician” who has done an impressive job of aping the first two factors in Trump’s appeal. That shows he’s “a disciplined pol,” but also that “he’s never going to suggest that you ingest bleach or say that he’ll pay for your legal bills if you punch a protestor. Hell, he even outsources his Twitter triggering to his staff so that he’s not personally on the hook for the stuff he has them say on his behalf.”
And this means that there’s an essential ingredient missing from DeSantis’ appeal—the trashiness.
To drive home the point, Last quotes some remarks by Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake from a recent rally with DeSantis.
The guy has bigger.… Wait, let me think about how I want to word this. My staff always says, “Whatever you do, do not say balls.” So I'm not going to say it. That guy has a backbone made of steel.
I’ll tell you what he’s got. I don’t know if you’d heard of this. He’s got “BDE.” Anybody know what that means? Ask your kids about it later.
I call it “Big DeSantis Energy.” Right? He’s got the same kind of BDE that President Trump has. And, frankly, he’s got the same kind of BDE that we want all of our elected leaders to have.
In case you’re having trouble following, allow me to explain: This is the Republican nominee for Arizona governor implying that the Republican governor of Florida has big balls and “Big Dick Energy.” Which inspires the following thought from Last: “Can you imagine DeSantis riffing about ‘Big Dick Energy’ in front of a crowd? Because I cannot. Kari Lake gives you a frisson of danger similar to Trump. She’s more authentically crazy than DeSantis. She’s a better speaker and is better on TV than DeSantis.”
Which could well make her a truer heir to Trump than DeSantis—provided she wins her race in November.
A Necessary Ingredient in the Populist Stew
This isn’t a post about Kari Lake. If Last’s analysis of her political potential is right, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to write more directly about her in the future. For the moment, I’m more interested in the question of how Trumpian populism works—and what that implies about the future of American democracy.
Last’s post has helped me to see more clearly than I have up until now just how essential The Trash Factor is to its appeal. The shit-talking side of Trumpism isn’t sufficient, but it is as necessary as the paleocon policy mix and the combativeness on cultural issues.
And that might make Trumpism a uniquely American variant of right-wing populism. Pick your foreign alternative: Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Marine Le Pen in France, the AfD Party in Germany, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, the Law and Justice Party in Poland, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Narendra Modi in India—none of them lead Trump-style, insult-driven, shock-talk rallies before a live audience of thousands and a TV and digital audience of millions who delight in the boorish spectacle. (Though, come to think of it, there may be a bit of overlap in trashiness with Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and the Five-Star Movement in Italy.)
A Trump rally (or one for Lake or Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano) is a blend of a standard political rally with an evangelical tent revival and a big-top circus led by a conman (or conwoman) who serves as a ringmaster of the (barely) controlled pandemonium. The bright lights, amplified music, and television cameras—not to mention the demotic crudeness—make it a modern event. But the form has deep roots in the American experience.
Trump managed to tap into those historical antecedents with his rallies. And it may well be that the politician most capable of reproducing and even expanding on such public events is the one who will rise above the various contenders to succeed the former president as head of the Republican Party and leader of its right-wing-populist crusade.
I read Jonathan's article and agree with it. You've expanded on it by pointing out the trash factor. This is why the Access Hollywood tape didn't sink him - his followers loved it precisely because it was trashy. Maybe now with very different problems facing Trump, some of his supporters may see that he is a dangerous character. His hard core fans will fall for the witch hunt BS, but just maybe enough of them will realize the gravity of the situation and break with him. Until our elected Republican friends break with him and his lies we will continue to have a problem. McConnell is certainly onto something when he despair over the quality of senate candidates. But until the party rejects the Big Lie, we're still in trouble.
Two points. Twain's the King and the Duke (or Duke and Dauphin) are prefigurations. Until the crowd wishes up, even in Arkansas. And the fastest way to detoxify some portion of the base is a cage match between Trump and DeSantis. Let us pray.