The Donald Trump candidacy has inspired a hundred writers to pen a thousand think pieces about the meaning of it all. Is Trump’s surge the sign of a new breed of populism? Is it the Tea Party reborn? Is it the reemergence of the old Ross Perot-Pat Buchanan strand of protectionism? Does it signal a right-wing nativism similar to what is bubbling up in Europe?
Maybe what’s going on is simpler: The Trump surge is, primarily if not entirely, about Donald Trump.
Most candidates run to advance ideas, principles, and positions on issues. But not Trump. His campaign is about Trump. Full stop.
Trump’s speeches are extemporaneous, so he talks about whatever comes into his mind. And more often than not, the subject he is most interested in is himself, particularly how well his campaign is doing. Trump can quote the latest polls in minute detail, whether by Gravis or Monmouth or Quinnipiac.
After that, Trump is most likely to talk about all the great things he has done and all his famous friends. Did you know that he went to the Wharton School of Business? Well, he did, which can only mean one thing: He is really smart. Also, did you know that he wrote the book The Art of the Deal? It is so good only the Bible is better. The Art of the Deal opens with an anecdote about all the important people Trump talked to on a Monday morning in the 1980s. Thirty years on, he is still talking to the movers and shakers, as he’ll gladly explain to you. He knows a lot of smart people—and not just in business. He’ll name-drop Carl Icahn just as quickly as Clint Black. Neither went to Wharton, but they are both terrific.
Trump, meanwhile, is arrayed against a bunch of wimps. Jeb Bush is a “low-energy person.” Nobody else in the Republican field can win—as Trump does on a regular basis. For proof? He pulls out the polls.
Issues feature in this candidacy only indirectly. Even immigration plays a smaller part in the Trump campaign than one would expect, given the media attention his inflammatory statements have attracted. Often, immigration is just a foil to introduce the idea that the political class is a bunch of dummies who are getting outfoxed by the leaders of foreign countries, especially Mexico, and he will negotiate a much better deal. Or better yet, he’ll send Carl Icahn to negotiate an unbelievable deal with Mexico. And China, too. (Carl Icahn is going to have a very large portfolio in a Trump administration.)
Trump seems to want to opine on the issues, but he never quite gets around to it, since all rhetorical roads lead back to him. For instance, at the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) conference in Nashville last month, Trump began to explain how to deal with Ukraine, suggesting we get Germany to take on more of the burden because it is geographically closer. But in the blink of an eye, he was back to talking about The Apprentice. Did you know Trump hosted a hit show on NBC? Well, he did. And Trace Adkins was on it, whom Trump had never even heard of before the show, but it turns out he’s a very nice guy, and . . .
About 50 years ago, political scientist Philip Converse argued that ideology could be understood as issue restraint. In other words, somebody who accepts conservative principles about free markets is restrained from endorsing the kind of redistributive tax scheme that Bernie Sanders is promoting. By this standard, Trump has little if any ideology. For instance, he avers that he is for “free trade,” but also for making Mexico pay for a border wall, and he will slap a tariff on Mexico if it won’t.
Issues are not the reason to support Trump. Instead, Trump wants you to send him to Washington to do great deals for America.
So, why is this working? Perhaps the better question is: Why shouldn’t it be working? After all, Trump’s pitch has worked for him for decades. Plenty of people made a mint during the Reagan boom, but only Trump turned his wealth into a personal brand—and he could do it because he is a character. He somehow manages to be simultaneously a man of the people and larger than life. He’s funny, witty, and disarming. Best of all, he seems to be hosting a party to which everyone is invited.
This comes through in his public appearances: He never gives a dull interview or boring speech. One might think people would be put to sleep by an extended disquisition on the Federal Election Commission’s disclosure forms that make Trump seem to be worth a lot less than he actually is, but the NFRA crowd seemed to love it. He supplemented his self-aggrandizement with zingers for nearly an hour. Easily his best of the night was: “Guys like Jeb Bush and Hillary, they hire pollsters and pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars. What do you have to do that for? Every week they come out with a new poll! . . . Why should I pay?”
Trump also has his finger on the pulse of the nation in a way that none of the other candidates except perhaps Bernie Sanders does. According to Gallup, the percentage of people who are “satisfied with the way things are going in the United States” has been below 50 percent since early 2004. That is a very long time. Or as Trump says, We don’t win anymore. Moreover, Congress’s ratings have been persistently under water since then, and neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama has been especially popular. Or as Trump says, Our politicians are losers.
Of course, once Trump moves past these generalities and into specifics, he stops making sense. But tone, temperament, and wit count for a lot at this still very early stage of the campaign.
Republican politicians should be worried about Trump, but not for the reason most of them are. Trump is never going to be the nominee. Voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina care about the issues a lot more than Trump does. If he is still in first place by the new year, the candidates, their super-PACs, and outside groups will blanket the airwaves with attacks on his many deviations from conservative orthodoxy. That will surely be the end.
A Trump victory is not what should worry the GOP. Rather, the party should worry that, with the field of candidates full of professional politicians, only Donald Trump—the real-estate tycoon from Manhattan who gave money to Hillary Clinton—actually understands the mood of Republican voters in middle America. And Trump is the only one of the bunch who is having any fun.
Jay Cost is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard and the author of A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption.
