A targeted retrospective on President Trump
He was successful—to the degree he was—because his base really trusted him.
The curtain has been closed on “45” for several months; whether it stays down is anyone’s guess. But that it is down now means that it’s possible to point out something important—something that had gotten lost during his presidency, amidst Russia-gate, Ukraine-gate, two impeachments, etc., etc.
People support and rally around those whom they trust.
That is just a basic fact about human psychology. Ask any sincerely religious person, and they’ll tell you that their relationship with God is not ultimately grounded in abstract syllogisms, intricate liturgical practices, or even tradition but, rather, in their God, Whom they know from many hours of consistent, earnest prayer, and whether doing it was blissful or challenging, done in good times or bad times.
Speaking from my personal experience, I can attest to the truth of that proposition. In spending time with God, especially in private prayer, I have come to know Him, and from this relationship of love with Him flows my commitment to the good things of the Church, a recognition of the importance of being service to others, a desire to imitate Christ, and the like.
People did not know Trump the way that you or I know God and our friends and family, but, nonetheless, he was popular because people did, in fact, trust him. Even so, pro-America commentators like Pedro Gonzalez have argued strenuously that, perhaps, in the final analysis, we should not have trusted Trump. Fair enough, and he might be right about that, as an empirical, practical matter.
Hindsight is, after all, 20/20, as the saying goes.
Fact is, at the time, Trump gave us plenty of material for us to trust him when he made his run for the White House against that creepy, pant-suited k̶w̶e̶e̶n̶ menace, Hillary Clinton. He sure acted like a traitor to his (elite) class, and he definitely spoke like an ordinary American, not some over-credentialed dweeb. He clearly loved the country, and he showed it in ostentatious ways, like bragging about its virtues incessantly and hugging the flag. And the cherry on top?
His policies were in the American interest; they put America first. (As an aside: Why shouldn’t that be the goal? After all, it’s animated by the same principle that cautions us to put on our own oxygen mask in the event of an in-flight emergency before helping those around us with theirs, and why the captain of a ship should be well-fed and -rested—neither of which any sane person opposes. We do those things because you cannot help others and accomplish the goals before you if you are not well yourself; or, said another way, you cannot give to others what you do not yourself possess. And if you want to build a strong world, strong countries are an unavoidable necessity, in the same way strong communities need strong families.)
Trump, effectiveness aside, was rhetorically committed to ending stupid wars, getting a handle on illegal immigration, rebalancing trade to benefit the broad middle of the country, transforming the judiciary into an originalist bulwark against progressive chicanery and in favor of the founding, and stomping on the throat of all manner of anti-American ideologies, political correctness chief among them. Those are objectively good policies, and their goodness probably would have spurred people to support Trump even if they didn’t trust him. (Indeed, many people voted exactly along those lines.)
But Trump’s support was—and remains—solid because his base truly trusts him.
So, a word to all those who would aspire to replace Trump: We don’t trust many of you because for too long you’ve done little else but clamor to be eaten last by the Left’s woke mobs and yearn to be members of good standing in the Uniparty, which, for decades, has ruthlessly looked out for its own interests above all else, at the expense of the common good. You will have to earn our trust if you want to win. You can start by picking up Trump’s America First agenda and running with it. He was always only a 1.0 candidate; his message and approach aren’t going anywhere, but they will be refined by those who can see the power it holds.
To be clear: We don’t have to like you (very much, anyway), but if we trust you—which you can earn by unashamedly pursuing policies that are in the national interest—we’ll have your back. We certainly don’t want to be spit on and called “violent extremists” (translation for those without an Ivy League degree: terrorists) by the very man who swaggered us into moronic foreign conflicts.
Surely that isn’t too difficult. Or have I once more put too much faith in the Grand Old Party and those would steer it, and our country, to better days?
Author’s note (Friday, September 17, 2021, 1:45 p.m.): Light word choice and grammatical updates made.
A very interesting analysis, Deion. Trust, or a lack of it, does seem to be so central to our current societal malaise. I'm really tired of hearing about another politician ignoring his own COVID protocols, or a general getting away with actions that would leave an enlisted soldier court martialed, or a journalist nonchalently printing faleshoods only to offer a retraction long after everyone has moved on--I'm tired of being reminded that we cannot trust the people we are supposed to be able to trust. I wonder if part of the reason Trump was an outlier for so many is that he was very clearly a success despite the efforts of basically everyone. For his base, Trump represented a sense that one could succeed even if the party leadership, the media, the cultural elites, even the snobbish collegiate class so certain they had his number (mea culpa) was arraigned against you. Whatever faults he had, and he had plenty, he clearly chose to cast his lot in with the people least likely to offer him reward. People felt like he wouldn't turn on them later, because he didn't turn on them in 2016. I wonder if it will be possible to recapture that; after all, the so-called "deplorables" are no longer assumed to be politically powerless and an electoral dead-end. Even if a politician embraces wholeheartedly the America-first agenda, I wonder if people will still have doubts because post-Trump any old grifter can see that that is a winning strategy. I've been personally confounded by the conservatives I see who seem to want Trump to run again in 2024, but maybe this is part of why they feel that way. In any case, thank you for offering your thoughts on Trump and his presidency, they are quite illuminating and have given me plenty to think about.
That's a good way of putting it, Deion. The GOP masses trust Trump to be "on their side" in a way that they don't trust the GOP establishment as a whole. And, personally, I too trust Trump to be on the right side of almost every issue. I don't, however, trust him to competently and effectively pursue the right course.