Trumpism in a Nutshell

It's all on the first page of "The Art of the Deal"

Few things have been as destabilizing and novel in American political life than the rise, fall, and possible return to power of Donald Trump. Although I follow the news relatively closely, I found none of the coverage as enlightening in understanding the Trump White House than the first two pages of Trump’s original 1987 bestseller, The Art of the Deal:

I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on a canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.

Most people are surprised by the way I work. I play it very loose. I don’t carry a briefcase. I try not to schedule too many meetings. I leave my door open. You can’t be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you’ve got too much structure. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops.

There is no typical week in my life. I wake up most mornings very early, around six, and spend the first hour or so of each day reading the morning newspapers. I usually arrive at my office by nine, and I get on the phone. There’s rarely a day with fewer than fifty calls, and often it runs to over a hundred. In between, I have at least a dozen meetings. The majority occur on the spur of the moment, and few of them last longer than fifteen minutes. I rarely stop for lunch. I leave my office by six-thirty, but I frequently make calls from home until midnight, and all weekend long.

It never stops, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That’s where the fun is. And if it can’t be fun, what’s the point?¹

It’s amazing to me how much this seems to sum up what we saw in terms of Trump’s governing style in the White House, including a notorious lack of self-discipline which greatly undermined his effectiveness.

In a sane world, a man like Trump would never rise to the highest office of a great nation like the United States. By ignoring many Americans’ decades-long concerns about immigration (legal and illegal), the offshoring of jobs to China and other lower-wage nations, and several disastrous foreign military adventures (especially in Iraq), the Republican Party left itself open to a hostile takeover by a mercurial reality-TV millionaire whose politics are defined above all by his showmanship, his instincts, and his ego.

Despite his erratic management style, Trump was able to deliver on some of his promises to his constituents. The Trump Administration imposed industrial tariffs not seen in generations and oversaw sharp declines in both legal and illegal immigration. There is evidence these policies had the intended economic of helping working-class Americans, with strong wage-growth among low-wage groups and reduced poverty during Trump’s tenure (although it is quite possible and even likely such policies hurt global and possibly American aggregate economic growth).

Besides these, Trump’s choices have often been conventionally conservative (in the U.S. context), including tax cuts (especially for the wealthier), deregulation, cheap energy, and the appointment of Supreme Court justices hailing from the Federalist Society, which argues interpreting the U.S. Constitution according to its textual or original meaning. On foreign policy, Trump has no strong ideological principles, besides enthusiastic support for the Jewish State, perhaps some anti-interventionist instincts, and a spectacularly confrontational deal-making style.

On issues like abortion, taxes, energy, the environment, and the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, there were already significant differences between the GOP and the Democratic Party. Differences on foreign policy, trade, and immigration were largely fictitious. To the extent Trump took action on trade and immigration, he significantly broadened democratic choice in American political life. At the same time, Trump’s refusal to recognize the result of the 2020 presidential elections—a decision again apparently driven by his ego more than anything else—is a major blow to the legitimacy of the U.S. democratic process.

Americans have a significant choice to make this November, not only in terms of personalities, but more meaningfully in terms of policy substance and, less predictably, elite power dynamics. Whether or not Trump wins this time, The Trump Show, which has dominated the world since 2015, will come to an end sooner or later. A second presidential term would be his last one and the man, at 78 years of age, is anything but immortal. What the post-Trump Republican Party will eventually look like is decidedly unclear, at least to me.

1. Donald Trump with Tony Schwartz, The Art of the Deal (New York: Ballantine Books, 2015 [1987]), pp. 1-2. Schwartz has claimed he entirely wrote the book based on spending time around Trump. If so, he channels characteristically Trumpian insights and tone remarkably well.