Comprehensive Report on Trumpism

Definition and Origins of Trumpism

Trumpism refers to the nontraditional political philosophy and approach espoused by US President Donald Trump and his supporters. The term can also be used to directly refer to an outrageous or idiosyncratic statement made by Donald Trump. Trumpism emerged during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and is characterized by immigration restrictionism, trade protectionism, isolationism, and opposition to entitlement reform. Google Trends indicates that searches for Trumpism took off in July 2015, a month after real estate mogul Donald Trump announced his bid for the US presidency. In a July 2015 speech, then-presidential candidate Rick Perry defined Trumpism as "a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued". The term spiked on Google Trends twice: in November 2016 and January 2017, coinciding with the general election and the days following President Trump's inauguration.

Ideological Foundation of Trumpism

At its core, Trumpism is the extreme far-right ideology that attacks democracy and normalizes violence against progressive agendas and liberal cultures, while promoting full market deregulation. It is associated with the belief that the President is above the rule of law and has been referred to as an American political variant of the far-right. Trumpism is a political movement in the United States that comprises the political ideologies associated with U.S. president Donald Trump and his political base. It incorporates ideologies such as right-wing populism, right-wing antiglobalism, national conservatism, neo-nationalism, and features significant illiberal, authoritarian and at times autocratic beliefs. Trumpism has been broadly seen among scholars as posing an existential threat to American democracy.

Key Components of Trumpism

Trumpism is manifested through the interaction of four central properties: populism, racism, isolationism, and authoritarianism. Combined, these elements have become a powerful socio-political mechanism for undermining democracy and pushing American society into chaos. As a political philosophy, Trumpism is an anti-establishment blend of economic populism, reactionary nationalism, and strong militarism summed up in Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again". Due to bigoted statements Trump had made and the viewpoints of some of his base, Trumpism is sometimes associated with white supremacy. Trump's rhetoric has its roots in a populist political method that suggests nationalistic answers to political, economic, and social problems.

Populism and Anti-Establishment Rhetoric

Trumpism is a manifestation of anger and hostility activated to defend identity that is based on dominance. Given the lack of credibility of politicians in general and taking advantage of the fact that only 17% of US citizens have confidence in their government, Trump presented himself as the anti-politician. To rural and industrial workers who due to the internationalization of production and robotization carried out since the 1990s, had lost their jobs – he emerged as a saviour whose entrepreneurial skills and willingness to fight against state rules would retrieve their jobs for them. Trumpism thrives on the "us" versus "them" classification of society and the results that follow. Growing resentment of "bigness" whether by Big Government, large corporations, outsized interest groups, and massive immigration have led large numbers of Americans to look for someone able to regain control of the American dream.

Nationalism and America First

Trumpism champions America First over international commitments; eschews canonical principles in favor of national identity; and embraces "industrial might". One of the most apparently consistent things the president has wanted is to undo anything that seemed to be a signature Obama-era policy - health, climate change, the Iran nuclear deal, better relations with Cuba. Trump has embraced isolationism as the basis for its "America First" policy, part of his "Make America Great Again" slogan. If the phrase sounds familiar, it's because it was the call of those American Nazi sympathizers during the 1930s who wanted the United States to stay away from the fighting in Europe.

Racism and Anti-Immigration Sentiment

Once Trump became a contender for the 2016 presidential election, Trump made racism a centerpiece of his candidacy. He accused Mexico and other Latin American countries of sending rapists, crime, and drugs. Trumpist rhetoric heavily features anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nativist, and racist attacks against minority groups. The Trump Administration has been openly racist in responding to the mobilizations of African Americans (and the whites who support them) and strongly opposed to immigration, with measures such as separating immigrant parents from their children, expelling descendants of immigrants born in the United States, and prohibiting the entry of Muslim citizens. When Trump urges his rally attendees to join him in the fight to "take our country back," one might ask, from who? The answer is, from those robbing us of "our culture".

Authoritarianism and Strongman Politics

Trumpism has been described as right-wing authoritarian populist, and is broadly seen among scholars as posing an existential threat to American democracy. His presidency sparked renewed focus and research on restraining presidential power and the threats of a criminal presidency that had died down since the Nixon administration. Trump advocated for an extreme position of unitary executive theory, arguing that Article II gave him the right to "do whatever I want". In February 2025, Trump wrote and pinned a comment on Truth Social and X: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law", which the White House later reposted on X that day.

Psychological Dimensions of Trumpism

Sociologist Michael Kimmel states that Trump's populism is "an emotion. And the emotion is righteous indignation that the government is screwing 'us'". Kimmel posits that Trump manifests "aggrieved entitlement", a "sense that those benefits to which you believed yourself entitled have been snatched away from you by unseen forces larger and more powerful. You feel yourself to be the heir to a great promise, the American Dream, which has turned into an impossible fantasy...". According to Philip Gorski, in Trumpian nostalgia "decline is brought about by docility and femininity and the return to greatness requires little more than a reassertion of dominance and masculinity. In this way, 'virtue' is reduced to its root etymology of manly bravado".

Communication Style and Rhetoric

Trumpisms are characteristic of Trump's distinctive style of communicating. Linguists explain that the president speaks in hyperbole and non-sequiturs, which make parsing his comments in writing more difficult than understanding them in speech or with visual cues. Trumpisms feature short, exaggerative catchwords like Sad!, huge, and superlatives like greatest, best, or most beautiful. Communications scholar Zizi Papacharissi explains the utility of being ideologically vague, and using terms and slogans that can mean anything the supporter wants them to mean. "When these publics thrive in affective engagement it's because they've found an affective hook that's built around an open signifier that they get to use and reuse and re-employ... MAGA; that's an open signifier... it allows them all to assign different meanings to it. So MAGA works for connecting publics that are different, because it is open enough to permit people to ascribe their own meaning to it".

Anti-Globalism and Economic Policies

Trumpism seeks to make the Republican Party "into a more populist, nativist, avowedly protectionist, and semi-isolationist party that is skeptical of immigration, free trade, and military interventionism". For the business and financial sectors that promote less State, Trump promised the reduction of taxes and deregulation of environmental measures such as those against the exploitation of protected natural areas. He swore to the big beneficiaries of private healthcare that he would end President Barack Obama's health care reform. In practice, Trump has pursued sizable income tax cuts, deregulation, increased military spending, rollbacks of federal health-care protections, and the appointment of conservative judges consistent with conservative (Republican Party) policies. However, his anti-globalization policies of trade protectionism cross party lines.

Impact on Democratic Institutions

Trump leaves several dangerous legacies for democracy behind him in the United States and the rest of the world. First, he has shown that it's possible to come to power by democratic electoral means and then subvert the state from within, as other rulers in Eastern Europe (Hungary and Poland), Turkey, Brazil, the Philippines and Russia are doing. At the same time, he has demonstrated that in order to remain in power, elections can be delegitimized through lies, fake news, the uses of loyal social networks, while blaming mainstream journalism for bias, and mobilizing paramilitary forces on the streets. Yale sociologist Philip S. Gorski warned against the threat of Trumpism, writing that "the election of Donald Trump constitutes perhaps the greatest threat to American democracy since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. There is a real and growing danger that representative government will be slowly but effectively supplanted by a populist form of authoritarian rule in the years to come.

Trumpism's Impact on the Republican Party

Trump has had a profound influence on the Republican Party, shifting it from its traditional conservative positions to a more populist stance focused on his personality and agenda. His campaigns, presidencies, and post-presidency have exercised particular influence over the shape and operation of the Republican Party. In January 2025, a CNN-SSRS poll found that 53% of Republicans viewed loyalty to Trump as central to their political identity and very important to what being a Republican is, beating values such as "a less powerful federal government (46%), supporting congressional Republicans (42%) or opposing Democratic policies (32%)". The 2020 Republican Party platform simply endorsed "the President's America-first agenda", prompting comparisons to contemporary leader-focused party platforms in Russia and China.

Breaking of Political Norms

Trump's presidency also shined a light on an aspect of the American presidency and the operations of democratic governance that had frequently been overlooked in public life: the importance of political and social norms and the degree to which the system depended on a mutual respect for them. Although many laws govern the behavior of elected officials, many of the practices Americans had come to expect from their leaders were not codified in law but rather in tradition—what social scientists call norms. Trump, who prided himself on his independence and unique approach to politics, routinely violated political norms. By far the most significant norm that Trump violated was respect for the peaceful transition of power. By refusing to publicly accept what he knew, and was told repeatedly, about his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump perpetuated a lie that enflamed passions and resulted in a violent insurrection on January 6, 2021.

International Impact of Trumpism

The return of Donald Trump to the White House will have major domestic US and international implications for the global map of political and economic power. Trump has damaged the liberal international order, which implies respect for international law, and the sovereignty and integrity of all countries, including small ones. It also means supporting multilateral institutions and their rules. The US and its allies have not always lived up to these ideals: the long-lasting and unsuccessful US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq undermined their authority, as did the 2008-09 financial crisis. But Trump is the first US president to openly share Vladimir Putin's contempt for the principles of the rules-based order. They both believe that great powers should enjoy spheres of influence in their neighbourhood, and think that smaller countries should kow-tow to the local hegemon.

Global Authoritarian Alignment

Trump's dislike of universalistic internationalism aligns him with Putin, Xi, Modi, and Erdogan. These five leaders share an appreciation of foreign-policy limits and a nervous inability to stand still. They are all pressing for change while operating within certain self-imposed parameters. Trump often praises authoritarian leaders while criticizing democratic allies. He has openly expressed admiration for China's Xi Jinping, Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong-Un, Hungary's Viktor Orban, Turkey's Recep Erdogan, and Egypt's Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. In Trump's words, "the tougher and meaner they [autocrats] are, the better I get along with them….". On assessing the leadership of Xi Jinping, Trump said of the Chinese leader, "President for life! That's pretty good".

European Response to Trumpism

Trump is promoting European unity, as the EU tends to integrate during crises. The eurozone crisis led to the creation of bail-out funds, the centralization of bank supervision and new tools for the European Central Bank to use. Covid led to the pan-European procurement of vaccines and a first EU eurobond issue. Now Trump's efforts to devalue the transatlantic security relationship, combined with fears of Putin's Russia, are leading not only to the growth of national defence budgets but also to more EU involvement in defence. In the long run, the gravitational pull of Trumpism may impact European political systems. EU leaders will have to work hard to maintain unity.

Media and Misinformation

Trumpism has normalized racism, sexism, and contempt for the left, environmental defenders and all those who represent the liberal agenda of diversity and human rights that has developed since the 1960s. It has articulated in public the rejection of immigrants and refugee claimants that people previously refrained from expressing. Trump spoke out and denigrated these claimants openly. As George Packer wrote, "not because he couldn't control his impulses, but intentionally, even systematically, in order to demolish the norms that would otherwise have constrained his power. To his supporters, his shamelessness became a badge of honesty and strength". His distortions of reality (such as talk about "success" against the pandemic the day US infections reached 11 million and 251,000 deaths) were cited by many political analysts as anecdotes or eccentricities. The result is that the very concept of fake news and "alternative realities" has almost become normal.

The Future of Trumpism

Trumpism is a powerful political force, especially for those living in fear—fear of surrendering their place in society to others, fear of government-imposed constraints on their lives, fear of losing their way of life. Even after Trump, there will be a political heir to Trumpism, whether it's his own family members or other political figures who embrace his style and policies. Some political personalities are already looming as potential candidates, notably Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who holds very tough positions on migration, the Black Lives Matter protests, China, and in favor of maintaining the Guantanamo base prison open. Other names include Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, Vice President Mike Pence (who has serious business sector backing), and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. According to speculation, Trump's daughter Ivanka or his son Donald Trump Jr. might also aspire to the role. Whoever his political heir is, if democracy is to be preserved and improved, if the progressive agenda is to be defended in the United States and elsewhere, it will be necessary to reflect and politically work on all the fields in which Trumpism has stamped his legacy.

Conclusion: Trumpism as a Cultural Phenomenon

Trumpism is now a part of American politics and culture, extending well beyond its namesake. It offers a simplistic political design for attending to society's problems, washing away political demons (and enemies) in the process. In essence, followers view it as a political cleansing agent with the promise of permanent change. The restructuring of American culture to include hate and violence coincide with the beliefs of many that American democracy is on the wane. In a 2022 national survey of Americans, 52 percent were "very concerned" with the future of American Democracy. Another national poll taken by NPR/Ipsos the same year offers an even more dour assessment with 64 percent agreeing that "American democracy is in crisis and at risk of failing". Because the world is no longer the same after Donald Trump was president, we need to reflect critically on this phenomenon and its implications for democracy and governance both in the United States and globally.