The impending selection of Donald Trump as Republican nominee for president has made the right-left way of describing American politics insufficient. His views on matters like property rights and libel law have introduced legal issues not usually contested during national elections to the political process, and his selective indifference to the rule of law transcends the economic and social debates that are the foundation of most modern campaigns. Arguing that Trump is “far right” or a “closet liberal” lacks not only precision but descriptiveness; a necessary level of specificity that also helps explain the qualms many conservatives still harbor about the candidate.
There is documented evidence that some of Trump’s positions prioritize his judgment over that of the law’s. He wants it to be easier for public figures like him to sue journalists for libel. His advocacy for seizing private property for his own use has been covered widely in the press. He has vowed to use executive actions—en vogue during George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s presidencies, and of increasing consequence over time—”much better” than the current president and for “a much better purpose than he’s done.” Trump’s explanation for why military officials would follow his command to kill the families of suspected terrorists in violation of the Geneva Convention perhaps explains his opinion of himself in the context of the law best: “I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it.”
On a circumstantial basis, any one of Trump’s preferences could be parsed, discussed, and even dismissed as the inevitable, one-off violation of orthodox thinking that any candidate for office holds. But these positions are linked by a common pattern and should be considered as a whole. House speaker Paul Ryan said in an interview that voters “are not just picking a person” for president, but “they’re also picking a path.” Trump is an office-seeker who contradicts that assertion: inasmuch as “leading people” is one of his official policies, Trump himself is the path.
To many, including the historian Robert Kagan, this describes the attitude of an authoritarian, or as The Washington Post has termed it, an “authoritarian populist.” That’s a messy characterization, particularly for a country in which its leading politicians are called either conservative or liberal. But it’s clear that Trump’s tendencies—the ones that go beyond his attitudes toward tax reform and abortion—can’t be explained neatly in familiar terms.
It’s instructive, then, to think of his politics in two dimensions. The father of the Libertarian Party, David Nolan, created an eponymously named graph decades ago that helps make such an evaluation. The New York Times wrote about the Nolan Chart in its obituary of Nolan, who died in 2010:
The chart has taken on different forms, but most versions attempt to categorize ideologies as conservative, liberal, authoritarian/populist or libertarian. One such website is On the Issues, a 20-year-old non-profit that provides voters with information about candidates and their stances. On the Issues measures ideology with a 20-question survey of economic and personal beliefs and cranks out a result on a 0-to-100-percent scale. In filling out the questionnaire to match Trump’s beliefs—and marking “no opinion” where his position is unknown, erratic or down-the-middle—he’s branded a “conservative-leaning populist”:
That at least seems approximate, given Trump’s skepticism of free trade, opposition to touching Social Security, support of infrastructure investment, and unqualified support of law enforcement. On the Issues accounts for these matters in its opinion poll.
It doesn’t account for the atypical legal issues that Trump has made part of this campaign, however. Even a more thorough test provided by iSideWith.com includes only property rights as a kicker. And its own two-dimensional scale concludes that Trump is a standard right-winger, an unconvincing assessment for such an abnormal candidate.
No gauge of a person’s politics is flawless, be it a questionnaire or an educated evaluation. There are never enough questions to ask, and in the case of Trump, surveying 100 political scientists, columnists, journalists and voters is likely to produce dozens of discrepant responses.
But that makes such a thorough review of his beliefs essential. Trump is already one of the most unpredictable White House aspirants in memory. He’s added to it by expanding the list of topics that presumably define his approach to governing. A failure to visualize it all leaves voters in uncharted territory.
