Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
From Whence Came Trumpism? Two Takes.
Over the last few months, there have been many attempts to explain why the deepest bench in Republican Party history fizzled when faced down by a man with no political experience, no ideological consistency, and no ties to the party he chose to run in for the presidency. Often hinted at (but never said forthrightly) were the ideas that Trump’s support came from racists or hillbillies. Now these accusations have been addressed by Avik Roy and J.D. Vance.
Roy, who’s worked for Romney, Perry, and Rubio, is considered the go-to healthcare wonk on the Right. He is described in this Vox article/interview as a Republican’s Republican, though they might just as easily have said that he’s an avatar of much of what those who support Trump hate. The editorial style of Vox is probably responsible, but Roy comes off as having a right-back-at-you disdain for those who rejected all the non-Trump candidates this season. He calls out the Republican Party (and even conservatism in general) for suffering from latent racism and white nationalism.
When I first read the Vox piece, I wondered if Roy had lost his mind. He says:
Conservative intellectuals, and conservative politicians, have been in kind of a bubble. We’ve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism — philosophical, economic conservatism. In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.
And:
It’s a common observation on the left, but it’s an observation that a lot of us on the right genuinely believed wasn’t true — which is that conservatism has become, and has been for some time, much more about white identity politics than it has been about conservative political philosophy.
In Roy’s view, Trump proves the Left’s caricature of the right as the party of aggrieved whites pining for the days of racial supremacy.
J.D. Vance is a rather different sort. Though educated at Yale Law School, Vance began life Appalachia and the rust belt of central Ohio. It took one tough Mamaw and the US Marine Corps to aim him toward heights far above his raising. Discussing his book Hillbilly Elegy with with Rod Dreher he sees a different cause for the Trump phenomenon found in the people and problems of Appalachia and flyover country.
Vance offers an alternative view that paints a bleak, but a little less-disheartening picture.
The simple answer is that these people – my people – are really struggling, and there hasn’t been a single political candidate who speaks to those struggles in a long time. Donald Trump at least tries.
[…]
The two political parties have offered essentially nothing to these people for a few decades. From the Left, they get some smug condescension, an exasperation that the white working class votes against their economic interests because of social issues, a la Thomas Frank (more on that below). Maybe they get a few handouts, but many don’t want handouts to begin with.
From the Right, they’ve gotten the basic Republican policy platform of tax cuts, free trade, deregulation, and paeans to the noble businessman and economic growth. Whatever the merits of better tax policy and growth (and I believe there are many), the simple fact is that these policies have done little to address a very real social crisis. More importantly, these policies are culturally tone deaf: nobody from southern Ohio wants to hear about the nobility of the factory owner who just fired their brother.
Trump’s candidacy is music to their ears.
While I think Roy paints the entire Republican party and Trump’s supporters with the colors of the fringest of elements, I don’t think Vance accurately portrays the whole of this year’s electorate either. There is no one-size-fits-all explanation for why Donald Trump is our nominee instead of Walker, or Perry, or Rubio, or Cruz. I do, however, there is some truth in what both men said. The party of Trump often times sounds like a South Park episode with a bunch of men hollering “They took our jerbs!” When I talk to Trump supporters in my workplace, I hear people who don’t want speeches about tax cuts and policy details; rather, they simply want what feels like a meaningful say in the outcome of their own lives. I hear in their voices the same despair with broken promises and jellied spines from Republican politicians that I get from the smart people here who have placed their faith in Trump.
After reading these (and other) theories I still have no full or settled explanation of why Trump. As usual, I find myself with unanswered questions and the “start a conversation” button begging me to search here for answers.
Published in General
The easy answer would be that #NeverTrump is elitism and that Trump is anti-elitism, but I think there’s more to it than that. The elites have looked down on most Americans as they wipe their feet across them for decades, and some pushback is warranted. Conservatism’s answer is disempowerment of the elite. Trump’s answer (at least from my perspective) is to shift the power to the people’s new champion who will wield it on their behalf. I think @spin nailed it when he said that we’d be better off if people realized that the purpose of government is to protect our right rather than to enact our will. I do understand the desire to have a little will enacted on those who have misused the citizens, but conservatism tells me over and over again that the power shouldn’t exist at all because it will always be abused by the wielder. There’s some LoTR imagery in there probably.
I think a lot of Trump’s appeal is that you have no doubt that, whatever his faults, he genuinely loves his country and wants to make it better. His love for the country seems truly genuine.
Take anybody and give them these things.
I will give you a Candidate.
To think that people make rational choices just proves the point that people are irrational.
This sounds like it describes me. Unfortunately, the Trump nomination leaves me feeling even more alienated, largely because those I thought stood with me in the trenches have now turned their guns on me. Self reliance, subsidiarity, constitutionalism, individual liberty apparently never really mattered to many claimed conservatives. It was all about just getting a strongman who would fight to use government power for nationalist aims, classical liberal principles be damned.
Roy’s attempt to reduce the phenomenon down to racism is BS outside of the margins. He is correct when he says that the conservative intellectual class was clearly negligent in its educational efforts. National Review and other publications have largely become an elitist bubble. Someone like Glenn Beck, who tries to provide genuine, principled education to a general population, is pushed to margins for being too uncouth and conspiratorial. The movement on the grassroots level then fell to the vapidity of Sean Hannity types, who reduce their claimed principles seemingly without a second thought.
Those who support classical liberal values need to regroup and rebuild, or they’re going to be left in political exile.
But that isn’t how this game works; sounds nice though.
You have to get the other team to agree with it first. The worm will turn, and the other team is back to exercising their will. So what you are really saying is only 1 group of people don’t get to exercise their will. That’s the reality of the game.
No it isn’t. Its a different form of empowerment of a different kind of elite. There is little practical difference between a natural monopoly and a monopoly by fiat.
No one called you a nazi.
The next four years (or more) will be political exile for small government, classically liberal, traditionally minded conservatives no matter the outcome in November. There’s a chance that Ryan and McConnell can marshal the forces of elected Republicans to keep this cohort involved in the process. Stop laughing, it’s not completely impossible.
Of course there’s a difference.
The problem is that there seems to be a sizable (I really don’t know how big) number of the former who are also flying the other flag.
Same here. Then his poll numbers rose after this debate. It certainly provided a wake up call to me. The message was: large numbers of Republican voters were not mad at GOP moderates for their left-leaning positions (other than Immigration), they simply were mad that they wouldn’t “fight” while promoting those positions.
It does. Absolutely it does. The problem is, we’ve not seen those values expressed by our leaders in Washington, aside from a couple of filibusters and the like.
Yay team!
I’m (very) reluctant Trump because of Pascal’s Wager: I know the time of Supreme Court judges that Hillary will put in. I know that my #1 issue (guns) is her #1 issue from the opposite direction. These are not uncertainties, they are known items.
Trump? Trump is an uncertainty, but at least there is a hope. Will conservatism have a chance to rebuild after four years of a Hillary Presidency? Maybe. We had a chance to rebuild after electing Obama twice, though, and here we are with Trump. I’d have preferred Walker, Perry, Paul or Cruz, but those ice cream flavors are sold out, so now I am staring at two choices, not 49 flavours.
This is worthy of a fuller explanation. It sounds to me like you’re saying that the system as designed simply can’t ever exist and that the checks and balances placed on government can never be effective since they’re essentially a parchment barrier incapable of withstanding the onslaught of human nature’s desire to conquer and rule over others.
Not very appetizing choices, imo.
While this is a very good summation of what many conservatives are thinking and feeling, I don’t think it’s accurate.
Most of us know that Trump, strongman that he presents himself to be – will be completely unable to implement edicts as President within our constitutional structure. Trump will be easy to fight should he venture outside the borders of freedom. Hillary won’t be easy to fight with her entrenched leftist henchmen and blind followers intent on further socializing America.
We are in a war and we are temporarily suspending classical liberalism in order to save it. We are waterboarding, even though it’s not considered nice, and might be a form of torture. We are not beheading infidels and burning people alive, kidnapping and raping their women. We seek to prevent these things.
Now, you might not believe this is a war, or that we are at this point. Fine. But we are not going against principles with Trump. We have no other choice. We hope to manage through. Most of us have made the calculation already that supporting Trump has certain upsides, perhaps some downsides, and we can maximize upsides with support and minimize downsides. Of Hillary there are no upsides and we are powerless to influence.
Sure there is that.
But also, natural monopolies exist. Where through the process of time and market forces a single entity or not-really competitive equilibrium is established, and as long as they don’t go to far there is no incentive for disruption.
This empowers an elite, and an elite with a kind of materialist divine mandate. Much like the wunderkinds in silicon valley.
What is *efficient* is not always *good*.
These ‘analysts’ and judge-er’s of the Trump phenomenon are too close to the situation to correctly assess ‘why Trump’. They either have something at stake (a need to be right, and see the other side as wrong), or a reason to insert some pet theory into the equation.
In case you haven’t noticed, the democrat party is cracking up too.
The American people are scared and angry, and see the country on a bad trajectory. They’re right to be – we’re not getting along, we’re in ruinous debt, and the world is getting more unstable. And it isn’t just the ‘poor’ people who see this.
Passions on the right have risen to support Trump believing that, with this reported business acumen, his toughness, and ‘plain-spokenness’, he’ll get the country back on track, while the ‘establishment’ people just want to regain control of the process so things can go back to ‘normal’.
Passions on the left have risen to support Bernie, and the idea that government needs to just ‘take care of us all’, while the ‘establishment’ people just want to regain control of the process so things can go back to ‘normal’.
Things cannot go back to normal, because what we were doing isn’t working, and it isn’t a stable place. But neither Trump nor Bernie have the answer either.
I personally think the answer is freedom and limited government, but maybe that’s just my ‘hobby horse’
This is a good summation. The only reason there is something right about Roy’s view is that we have only two viable parties and everyone must go to one of them if they want their effort and vote to count. Roy takes the fringe to be the main.
Vance, on the other hand, references something he calls his people. Every time I hear a characterization like this, I cringe. I have a substantial Scots-Irish heritage and Appalachia and I suspect I’ve inherited behavior traits that reflect this. But I’m an individual and my people are humanity and that’s it. Individuals in Appalachia would not think that the government’s legal theft by taxation and redistribution to those not having earned their way is proper had they not been taught that. And everything else they have been taught about the role of government by Republicans and Democrats that is wrong.
My belief in the individual and the Constitution may be a lost cause but there you are. People, let’s go to work in the States.
Horrible, awful, disgusting choices. It’s like licorice vs. non-fat, sugar-free, low-cal vanilla.
I wouldn’t wish this choice on anyone, but it’s what’s in front of me. It’s a horrible task, but stamping my foot and denying that I’m faced with a daunting task is how a six year old reacts to such things, not an adult.
It is quite simple. It isn’t that Trump is the answer, he is simply the only one yelling.
Amazing really. Now I understand what happened in Detroit and Chicago.
So here is a question I have. We have in the article above two theories proposed to explain Trump’s success. How can we confirm their truth? To me it seems that both can plausibly explain the phenomenon, but do we actually have a way of falsifying either hypothesis, other then just deciding one is insulting and so preferring the second? Is not the simplest explanation for Trump simply that his ability to win with a small plurality in the early primary races coupled with the delegate distribution system that favors early winners simply lead to victory. That there is in fact no great political upheaval. Just that in a crowded field the candidate pushing the most red meat policy lines will win early and then the bandwagon effect takes over. In other words how can we disprove the idea that Trump is a fluke? How do we eliminate the null hypothesis?
Then why support him in the first place? I don’t get it? If he can’t do what he says he can do he is nothing more than a braggart.
It’s also deep, deep resentment towards those who invidiously conflate “white” nationalism and American nationalism.
Hence, Trump.
Who does seem to get the difference and care about it.
Who seems to be, who his supporters hope he is, the old fashioned type of businessman who operates internationally while being a patriot instead of a postnationalist or transnational progressive.
“Despair” is exactly the right word for people I know open to a Trump candidacy. Their support has nothing to do with particular policies. And it certainly has nothing to do with racism. They have simply lost all hope of significant progress from the Republican party and believe only a fundamental disruption of the status quo can make way for positive change.
Trump is a wrecking ball. It’s not more complicated than that for many of his supporters.
And, frankly, that’s not much different from the election of Obama, who proposed little more than destruction of the status quo.
Even if that is true, we’re clearly losing on a grassroots level. We need to find some way to reach the general population more effectively. Whatever his other flaws, I think Glenn Beck does a good job of translating classical liberal values to a general audience. I think a site like the Federalist is a breath of fresh air, with young, conservative voices who grew outside of elite circles. Ricochet has clearly failed in linking the elites with the general population, but has been a roaring success in at least giving an outlet for those of us not part of the conservative media establishment. We need more media in these molds. Rob Long also regularly harps on about the entertainment media. We need people to listen to him. We also need to find a way to crack the left’s stranglehold on education. It’ll be a long march, but we need more young conservatives to try to sneak through the cracks the way the Marxist left did in the 20th century.
The number one reason for the rise of Trump is, as Rick Perry has so steadfastly diagnosed, the government is too damn important in our lives. We can blame both Democrats and Republicans (the demise of the incandescent light bulb, fellas… really? Our guys’ version of banning hamburger.), but primarily Democrats. When they shoved Obamacare down our throats, they made government a life or death issue for Americans — literally.
I think EJ nailed it, but I’m going to phrase it a little differently. If there’s a racial component to Trumpism, it’s thanks to the identity politics the Left has been using for decades to collect their victim groups on the plantation. They’re for the “little guy,” so long as he knows his place and votes en masse for the Democrats. There are no uppity blacks (gays, Jews, Latinos, single women) in the Democrat party. Only “victims.” It may be the single most destructive (to human flourishing) worldview the world has ever known.
But, lots of middle class and poor whites have been feeling like chumps for believing in the melting pot idea of America. I don’t think it makes them racist to respond to the conditions by looking for someone to represent their interests for a change. They’re not shooting black cops and shouting for whites to move to the back. Exactly who are the racists, Avik?
No. Obama proposed an agenda and has gone a long way towards realizing it.
He has been a pretty successful president by his own lights and Hillary will consolidate his gains.
National Socialist, maybe, but not Nazi.
No President, especially a Republican President, can do what he says he will do. Have you not learned that? However, we take statements like “I’m going to build a wall” as intent to fix, or improve radically, our immigration issue, wall or no wall. The ‘wall’ is a symbol of intent. It’s a goal. Likewise with every other statement.
Even if he’s merely a braggart and a charlatan (which I don’t believe at all) he would still be better than Hillary.
Here’s an interesting take on that issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCabT_O0YSM
hat tip: vladtepsblog.com
My frustration with Trump supporters (and I mean those who actually support him, not those who will vote for him against Hillary), is they seem to not actually care about what he says and what he thinks. He seems to be, the them, the equivalent of a tofu cube. Soft, squishy, and can be whatever you decide you want it to be. They all seem to think that this is the guy who’s gonna finally do whatever it is that they want done.