The poop plane and the Nazi tattoo

Why Trump vs. Trumpism matters

It’s difficult to imagine anyone else getting away with the things that Trump has done over the last week or so. The one that’s received the most attention is the demolition of the East Wing of the White House, though I haven’t been able to tear myself away from the conversation around the, uh, poop plane video (link goes to a CNN podcast) that was released last week in response to the No Kings protests. There’s also the increasingly possibility of a president-initiated war with Venezuela. There are three ways to think about how much Trump has been able to expand his power, and what the pushback has and hasn’t been.

The first is institutional – how Trump’s use of executive power builds on recent trends in this area, while also carving out new dimensions based on recent court decisions and new interpretations of old legal theories. The institutional angle is my usual approach, but not the one I want to dwell on today. It’s true that Trump inherits an office that’s sometimes been called “imperial,” and that debates about executive power became more ideological and partisan during the Bush years. That subject, and its implications for what’s potentially happening in Venezuela, deserves its own post.

Trump’s power has also been cast as individual. Certainly, he’s tried to develop this reputation, starting with his claim in 2015 that he could “shoot someone on 5^th avenue” and not lose supporters. His 2024 reelection bolstered this idea among news media, who eagerly lapped up the political comeback narrative and echoed claims to a popular mandate.

Trump is not immune to shifts in public opinion – his approval numbers now reflect this – nor has he ever been especially popular or in tune with the American electorate. But he is a unique and distinct political figure: he’s also been known as a real estate figure and a reality TV star. Before seeking the GOP nomination, he associated with Democrats and flirted with running for president under the Reform Party banner. Even running as a former president, Trump somehow has continued to bring this outsider image along. What remains of the old GOP establishment has fallen in line behind Trump and Trumpism; but he will never be *of* that establishment, exactly.

This kind of political identity does give Trump room to maneuver. Because his pre-political identity was often presented as silly and trivial, he and critics draw on that when defending things like posting the AI poop video. House Speaker Mike Johnson called the video “satire” and claimed that Trump is the most effective user of social media in history. We can debate the superlatives, but the ambiguity implied here has a kernel of truth: Trump the individual is an entertainer by trade. He brings that background to the presidency, and it makes him a different kind of leader than predecessors with experience as Senators, governors, generals, or attorneys.

This kind of ambiguity, as I’ve argued before, is probably crucial to Trump’s ability to build a winning coalition. His core supporters who buy the full project of Trumpism are not enough to win; he needs the support of people who think a successful real estate guy can fix the economy, who think a reality star is irreverent and funny, or (later) who see him as the person who was president in 2019, before inflation ruined everything.

Personality cults are always bad for a democracy, and this particular one has its own unique drawbacks. Building a reputation as an irreverent entertainer has probably contributed to Trump’s imperviousness to shame. Public opinion and fear of norm violation has been a more important constraint on presidential behavior that perhaps anyone realized before now, but now we know. Claims like Mike Johnson’s about Trump’s satirical skill also divert attention from the issue at hand, shifting the discussion from why it might not be appropriate for the president to post certain things and toward whether his critics just lack a sense of humor.

In sum, the fact that Trump is seemingly able to evade serious political consequences for much of what he says and posts may well be linked to him as an individual political figure. The destruction of the East Wing seems to be drawing a lot more criticism, even from the right, but we’ll see.

The other, often more implicit, explanation is that Trumpism is ascendant as an ideology. Trumpism doesn’t have a precise definition, and I have no interest in wading into the debate about fascism as a label. But in Trumpism seems to have some distinct ideas that are different from, say, the GOP c. 2006 or 2012. It’s clearly and plainly anti-immigrant, protectionist on trade, and intolerant of opposition. The overt cultural claims – against DEI, against trans and non-binary people, against immigrants – have failed to be disqualifying politically. Trump even won a more diverse coalition in 2024 than in 2016.

In other words, there’s an implicit idea that Trump gets away with this kinds of norm violations because what they represent – racism, sexism, crudeness – are really popular with the electorate. This idea has thrown Democrats into even more disarray than usual following their 2024 loss. Democratic fears of being too woke, too radical, and too closely associated with minority groups has been part of their struggle for decades. But the narrative has taken on new importance now that the stakes of losing an election are much higher. As a result, the questions about whether Democrats need to move to the center, bend over backwards to accommodate the priorities of rural voters, think about why they’ve lost young men, etc. have come rapidly and tinged with panic.

This week, this question took the form of whether an expanded Democratic tent can fit candidates with Nazi tattoos (thanks, Atlantic, for that particular framing). Seth Masket makes a compelling case that the fact that Democrats are even considering continuing to support Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is connected to narratives of 2024. These narratives, which don’t have much clear support, indicate that perhaps by disqualifying a candidate like Platner, the party will continue to alienate the much-storied white working class.

There’s not, as Masket points out, a lot of evidence that Nazi tattoos are actually popular with this segment of the electorate. More broadly, the demand for a purer and more intense form of Trumpist ideology doesn’t really appear to be there. I argued back in 2024 when Trump secured the nomination that if even GOP primary voters wanted that, they might have gravitated toward candidates like Ron DeSantis or Vivek Ramaswamy. What Trump brought when seeking office is a bit unique – a bit of ambiguity about what he stands for, humor, and a non-political reputation. If we think that’s the secret to his political resilience, then it undercuts arguments in favor of adopting more extreme Trumpist positions like “Nazi symbols are ok.”

Resisting the growth of authoritarianism requires understanding the precise nature of Trump’s power. This in turn requires distinguishing the person from the political movement, and engaging with which ideas are actually popular and compelling. Let’s not confuse the ways Trump has been able to maneuver politically within our system with the conclusion that his ideas are popular. Before people across the ideological spectrum agree to compromise core democratic values, they should at least be clear on why they are making that choice.