By Abe Greenwald
Thursday, March 19, 2026
The Trump worshippers of yesterday are now proclaiming
Trumpism dead. Christopher Caldwell and others have written articles renouncing
Donald Trump for launching the American-Israeli military operation against
Iran.
They don’t say it, but those of the disenchanted flock
have come to realize, in part, what many of us already knew: Trumpism was never
alive to begin with.
They made it all up.
Trump’s early supporters on the intellectual right
founded think tanks and publications dedicated to unearthing an “ism” somewhere
in the reality star’s grab bag of billionaire bluster, everyman grievance, and
showbiz insult. Unsurprisingly, they emerged with exactly what they wanted to
see.
This was mostly a negative agenda, focused not on
regeneration but rejection. Trumpism was supposed to reject liberal social
engineering, conservative fiscal restraint, neoconservative hawkishness, and
neoliberal free markets.
In other words, whatever competing political ideas were
in circulation before Trump took office would be wiped from the menu. As
Caldwell puts it in the Spectator, “The Trump movement is what happened
when Americans discovered the system could not be reformed democratically, only
dismantled.” Which goes to show that the inventors of Trumpism were already
developing the adolescent’s attraction to revolution.
As for their positive wish list, to varying degrees, some
wanted nativism, isolationism, industrial policy, and—incredibly, considering
who Trump is—a return to traditional mores.
Occasionally their fantasies aligned with Trump’s
policies. Other times, he humored them. And sometimes, they were worlds apart.
But Trump was able to smooth it all over with populist appeals to deep-state
conspiracies and battle cries against the establishment.
Trump’s first term foundered in the Covid pandemic, and
the whole country would go on to suffer an extended psychotic episode that
stretched into the presidency of Joe Biden.
But something interesting happened during those years of
national madness. The institutional abuses of the pandemic made the Trumpists
crazier and more radical, while Trump himself—who had to run a gauntlet of
legal fights, brushes with death, and reelection to the White House—came
through with an unforeseen ability to focus squarely, simplistically even, on
national problem-solving.
Trump’s second term would be a redo, and the only
revolution he wanted would be one of “common sense.” Our unprotected border was
a problem. It was common sense that we secure it. DEI indoctrination was a
problem. Common sense dictated that we get rid of it. On it went. It’s common
sense that there are two sexes, that those illegally residing in the United
States need to leave, that the federal government wastes billions on ridiculous
schemes, and that American cities should be safe from criminals.
Finally, of course, it’s common sense to use the world’s
most formidable military to take out the most dangerous enemies of the United
States. And that was just too much common sense for the Trumpists. Unlike
Trump, they came out of the pandemic delirium as chronic conspiracy theorists
with a full-blown case of anti-Semitism. If fighting Iran meant partnering with
the Jewish state, they were done.
So done they are. Unlike Trumpism, MAGA lives. It’s what
it’s always been: whatever Trump says it is. And polls show that MAGA’s share
of the right is larger and more supportive of Trump than it was a year ago.
Caldwell describes Trumpism as Trump’s movement. But it’s
not and never was. It was the invention of thinkers, journalists, and
performers who sought to justify their support for Trump as something more
sophisticated than it seemed, something more sophisticated than Trump could
ever be bothered with. They supported Trump because they liked the idea of
tearing it all down. That movement—their movement—is, in fact, dead.
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