The Perils of Populism

Let's get this out of the way: Trump is not a conservative.

Trumpism, the most popular flavor of Republicanism at the moment, may share some commonalities with what we commonly include in the conservative tableau, but at its core it is populism with an extra shot of nativism.

I had the opportunity to attend an event with Wall Street Journal opinion writers/editors James Taranto and James Freeman a few years back. During the Q&A, I asked if they thought Trump was a free marketer or a protectionist, given that he had exhibited both predilections. I believe it was Taranto who opined that Trump was 'whatever he felt like in the circumstance' or something to that effect.

I agree.

Trumpism has no ideological foundation, and Trump remains, as I dubbed him from the get-go, an 'untethered orange id.' He runs with his gut, not with principle, on policy decisions. While executives have proven to be better at being Presidents than legislators have, it remains that the nation is not a business and the President is not a CEO. Again, there are similarities, but businesses seek to maximize their success within a set rules, but governments write those rules, and government is not supposed to pick winners and losers.

Yet, "winners and losers" is at the heart of populism. Whereas conservatism embraces economic liberty, populism pays it lip service while tipping the scales toward preferred businesses, sectors, and "America!" nativism. Tariffs, presented as "levelers," are actually burdens on American consumers, and as often used to play the "winner-loser" game as they are about thumping foreign producers and nations.

Populism also invokes an "us vs them" domestically that likewise rejects tether or foundation. While we libertarians have a healthy and endlessly justified distrust of government, we remain open (and indeed highly value) facts and reason. Heck, our flagship publication (as far as libertarians might have one) is called "Reason." Populism's anti-authoritarianism, by contrast, is reflexively contrarian, as in "if the government or the other side says X, assume it's a lie and do the opposite." We witness this from both the Right and the Left, by the way, as the Biden's administration's policy guidebook appears to be little more than "if Trump did it, we must do the opposite."

This crowds out judging opinions, conclusions, and policies on their own merit, with evidence and logic as the sole guidelines, and without the presumed "taint" of origin with the other team.

It also births all sorts of mischief, from anti-vaccine conspiracy theories to fake moon landings to an endless list of "evil genius puppet masters running things behind the scenes" paranoia. If they are, they've proven themselves to be far more bumbling idiot than evil genius, by the way. And, at its root, this detaches people from facts, logic, and "process."

So, even when clear and obvious truths emerge, the conditioning born of populism rejects them, either because they're inconvenient or because "bad guys" coughed them up. The zero-sum "us vs them" of populism kills the respect for objective reality in favor of tribal relativism. There's much irony in populists' rage against the Left's version of that same behavior.

The January 6 dog-and-pony show has, surprisingly or perhaps not, produced some information that really should give anyone still favoring Trump pause. His inaction for hours after the riot started, when he could have defused the riot with a forceful “Not in my name” disavowal tells us that, while he may not have expected or sought the riot, he was quite pleased by it. His tacit endorsement of the "Hang Mike Pence!" chants is an abomination that, alone, should lose him the support of any reasoning person. There's a lot more to reinforce that conclusion. Yet my feed is awash in Trump loyalists, whose continued blind allegiance affirms his "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters" boast.

Likewise, Trump's continued insistence, against all real evidence, that he won the 2020 election should chase people away, not reinforce their loyalty. Again, populism's de-tethering from reason proves out.

Populism is alluring because it appeals to our "gut," to our natural instincts. Civilization, however, consists of taming those instincts so we can live amongst each other better than if we were to let them rule. This is where Freud's superego overrides the id, and it's why id-dominant types like Trump, like orange sherbet, are appealing but not really good for us. Trump was a necessary rebuke of the Left's amok, and I remain happy, even after all the chaos, that Clinton was kept out of the White House. But, we've had more sherbet than is good for us, and it's time to set the populism aside in favor of some more traditionally anchored American fundamentals (see: the Constitution) and some respect for reality. Whether someone like DeSantis will give us that remains to be seen, but it's very much time to retire Trumpism to the history books.

I close with three questions for those who still favor Trump over other Republicans:

1. Does he stand a better chance of winning than, say, DeSantis?

2. Does he bring anything positive to the table that any of half a dozen other GOP possibilities do not?

3. Will the country as a whole be better off with him in the WH, or with a different Republican?

If Trump needs a salve for his ego, some sort of validation that he is still adored, he can serve both his fans and the country well by playing "kingmaker" rather than pursuing another term. As Gregg Opelka notes at the Wall Street Journal, Trump could play the same role he had in The Apprentice. In doing so, he’d sate his die-hard fans while saving the GOP and the nation a redux of rancor.

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Yours in liberty,

Peter.