Trumpism is the politics of total emotional indulgence
Thinking is hard and uncomfortable. Far right extremism promises you can stop.
This is a slightly edited collation of a Twitter thread I wrote in May 2021. It feels more relevant than ever, and with that platform’s ongoing decline, I want to be sure that I have it preserved somewhere online.
One thing you see a lot is people pointing out the contradictions in the putative views of Trump’s GOP. COVID is a Chinese plot but also a hoax. The Jan. 6 insurrection was done by antifa, but also a peaceful tour by patriots.
What people need to understand is that these contradictions aren’t a symptom of Trumpism. They point to its very core - its emotional, psychological appeal to millions of America. The ability to sustain these contradictions is why Trump was elected, how his movement exists.
What Trump offers - what fascism offers - is a philosophy of total emotional and psychological indulgence. Believe whatever makes you feel best. Live your politics unexamined.
So: Don’t want to take credit for the insurrection, but want to claim its dead as your martyrs? Go ahead! Say it! The Capitol was attacked by antifa but Ashli Babbit was a hero patriot.
Hate China, but annoyed by the scolding liberals and their masks? Call the coronavirus a Democratic hoax - and at the same time, a deadly foreign bioweapon.
Voters aren’t drawn to Trump’s politics because of a specific policy view or really even an ideology. They’re drawn to them because those politics say:
“Please, think whatever is easiest. Indulge in your laziest ideas and basest prejudices. There are no rules.
Save one.
You must support the leader. You cannot abandon the leader. Support for the leader absolves you of the burden of rationality and the sin of inconsistency. Indeed, faith in the leader can be proven by embracing irrationality and rejecting consistency. Prove your faith.”
That’s why Trumpism and fascism reliably attract the worst and the weakest, the dumb, the selfish, and the cowardly. It’s an endlessly flexible vessel for their worst vices, willing to forgive anything and let them do anything in exchange for loyalty to the strongman.
The mistake American political thinkers keep making is to try to link Trump to preexisting ideology. There are ideas associated with Trumpism, of course, but they are the symptom: what happens when you let people indulge in whatever fleeting hate takes their fancy.
You can’t understand Trump’s rise without looking at this deeper psychological appeal. This is his promise to his voters, it’s why nothing his movement says or believes makes sense, and no one seems to care.
It’s also why we can’t triangulate or maneuver his supporters away from him. They don’t really want any of what we’re offering, anyway - they want the freedom to do and think whatever they feel at any moment, something no liberal of any description could ever promise.
I would go a step further. Trump has no virtues, only vices. He is manifestly, obviously, relentlessly a terrible human being. He is always the worst version of himself. His core political message is: be the worst version of yourself and you will face no consequences, if you support me.
But, sooner or later, everyone-being-the-worst-version-of-themselves will precipitate economic and civic disaster. There WILL be negative consequences. So, the question is: how will our institutions react when consequences manifest? How will the public react?
You can see this in Trump's roots in reality TV. It's obvious that the central appeal of Reality TV to most viewers is getting to live vicariously through a profoundly disordered person who demands "fuck you, I get what I want" at every stage of human interaction. Trump had the advantage of being both a reality TV star and having a deep understanding (although I doubt he can articulate it) that modern "journalism" and entertainment are largely the same and share business models, and that he could ride his own incoherence and erratic behavior farther than anyone expected.