He's back. (Jim Watson/Pool/AFP/ Getty)

When Martin Van Buren was inaugurated in March 1837, the weather was gentler than the icy terror that descended upon Washington yesterday to welcome President Trump back to the White House. But there were other remarkable similarities that might help us understand Trumpism as a historical reality that has precedents — and provide an antidote to the liberal hysteria that still swirls around it.
On both occasions, the federal city was filled to capacity. “Beds! beds! beds!” was the general cry in 1837. Many visitors had spent the previous night sleeping rough, in barns and markets and even barbers’ chairs. And so it was in 2025, with even mid-market hotels charging upwards of $1,500 per room. Both inaugurations were similarly marked by the irreverence and boozy rowdiness typical of populist movements, Jacksonian democracy in Van Buren’s case, Trumpism yesterday.
Watching the swearing-in remotely, from the Capital One Arena, I chuckled at the partisan fandom. Prominent Democrats drew boos from the crowd, while Republicans got applause. But when Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, appeared side-by-side, the crowd booed. “Wait, what did poor Mike Johnson do?”, I asked my companion. Then, as if collectively regretting their drive-by booing of the innocent Johnson, most of the arena audience refrained from booing or cheering when members of both parties showed up together on the jumbotrons.
Trump, inevitably, received roars of approval and standing ovations. Not much at first, when he was strangely subdued and his delivery halting. But as he gathered steam, so too did the audience. The greatest clamour of approval came when he pledged to make it the “official policy of the United States government” to recognise only two genders: male and female. Other crowd favourites included “Drill, baby, drill”; his vow to “take back” the Panama Canal; and, of course, his crackdown at the border.
It turns out that doing popular things can make for good politics. Democrats today don’t seem to grasp this banal truism, but their own party’s Jacksonian founders did, whether it was dismantling the Second Bank of the United States, an institution that had come to be hated by much of the public for the imperious role it played in the early republic’s politics (even as it fulfilled important economic functions); or imposing the first legal limitation on the length of the workday; or expanding the democratic franchise to white men without property.
Trump’s instincts hew much closer to those of Jacksonian Democrats than his own party’s intellectual class, and he has no problem proclaiming the popular. Precisely because progressivism has come to be associated with paper straws, congestion fees, and diminished expectations, Trump gains the upper hand simply by promising good things to come, even as some of his brain-storms veer into the preposterous — such as a military invasion to bring Greenland under American control.
Yet the deepest historical echo yesterday had to do with political coalitions. To wit, “Jacksonism” — the worldview associated with Van Buren’s predecessor and ex-boss, Andrew Jackson — raged against “the money power” that oppressed workers and farmers. But his coalition also included grasping entrepreneurs, local bankers, slave-owning planters, along with other interests who were by no means opposed to capitalism, but saw in Jackson a chance to make the system work better for them.
And so it was with Trump. On the one hand, Trump in his Inaugural Address attacked the “corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair”. On the other, he invited to the dais business leaders such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose firms took once the lead in promoting the corporate “wokeness” reviled by Trump’s base.
More than a mere dais seat, Elon Musk has been presented with his own government department, to which the Tesla and SpaceX boss hopes to recruit a team of “small-government crusaders”. He says he aims to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget —surely impossible without cutting those entitlement programs that Trump and the Republican platform have promised never to touch. So we are left wondering which Trumpism will prevail: the one that explicitly appeals to trade unionists (as the President also did in his address), or the one that (for now) adores Musk as a (Roman) demigod?
But for one day, at least, the American Right’s various factions pressed pause on their bickering to celebrate Trump’s remarkable comeback saga: from January 6 through the barrage of indictments and convictions of the past four years, he has made it back to the summit of earthly power. But the tensions will erupt soon enough. Already, Congress’s TikTok ban and visa programme disputes have divided the movement’s populist base and Silicon Valley funders.
Judging by the inauguration, the latter are everywhere in the new Washington. They were at every fringe event, dinner, and party that I attended. Trumpism now contains within itself a downscale base that sings “glory, glory, hallelujah!” and yearns for restoring industrial jobs, and an affluent element that promotes longevity through plasma transfusions and who would automate most jobs out of existence.
Can these two competing impulses be synthesised?
Here, the Jacksonian example isn’t so helpful. While Jackson, Van Buren and their ilk did indeed smash the Second Bank of the United States, this redounded mostly to the benefit of their business allies; the workers and smallholders in turn were handed a brief depression and a surge in inflation caused by a surfeit of wildcat bankers, followed by decades during which the United States suffered from a much higher rate of banking crises than comparable industrial powers with more centralised financial systems. But for all its flaws, the hated administrative institution did help discipline the flow of credit.
There are, however, more successful reform models in the American political tradition. Particularly germane is what the liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr dubbed “Hamiltonian means for Jeffersonian ends”: a willingness to ally with and use big institutions and wealth, whether public or private, in service of the Jeffersonian vision of a competent, modestly propertied citizenry — the American Dream, if you like. Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, FDR, Eisenhower, and JFK all echoed this to varying degrees, with varying degrees of success.
But such an approach would require a willingness to discipline Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Musk, including by mobilising public opinion against them. The state must lead business, even if business leaders are allowed great closeness to state power and invited to participate in politics. FDR, for example, warned firms against defying his labour and competition reforms: “There is no group in America that can withstand the force of an aroused public opinion.”
At the Commander-in-Chief Ball on Monday night, where the majority of guests were members of the armed forces and their families, the cheering, whooping, and military-style “Hooahs!” for Trump and his team were deafening. “Welcome back, President Trump, your warriors had missed you,” declared a Medal of Honor recipient from the podium. “He’s just with us,” an Air Force man told me. “I don’t care about this or that policy. He has our backs.”
At least for now, Trump has that dangerous “force” of public opinion on his side to an extent that wasn’t the case the first time he was elected — and that hasn’t been the case for a Republican president in a generation. As one official who had served in the first Trump administration told me, “Every 40 years or so, the Jackson spirit comes back to stir things up in this country. The question is what you do with it.”
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SubscribeAfter a day of celebration Trump and his team now have to govern. The immediate Executive Orders expected but none fundamentally change the position of the ‘little guy’ or ‘left behinds’ who rallied to his flag.
The real test is the Reconciliation Bill that Trump and Johnson need to navigate through the House with a tiny majority. Trump will prioritise the Billionaire tax cuts in this but how will he pay for them? Heavy tariffs will not anywhere near cover the trillions needed. And many economists think these would damage the US as much as aid. DOGE won’t release much immediately, if it does at all after 2yrs. He’s not said he’s cutting entitlements or Medicaid or Defence spending. So he’s borrowing and increasing the nation debt then? Now if tax cuts for the v wealthy a priority and just increases debt how’s he paying for the mass deportations and Sheriff Joe’s too? Which one is the priority? And are all the House Republicans about to junk their fiscal conservatism and provide the sort of unfunded Keynesian stimulus they hate, just at a time when US economy at capacity and inflation a risk again? This governing thing ain’t so easy is it.
So let’s see. The Reconciliation Bill will dump everything in it to try and maximise pressure on the House Republicans to support. But if that doesn’t work…
And if it does he’s just further mortgaged the ‘little guy’ to give his Billionaire backers a massive dividend pay-out for their support.
Inevitable contradictions will now start to unravel.
You don’t need to “pay for” tax cuts, you need to pay for spending.l
That’s what socialists (especially Reeves and Starmer) never understand. The reverse Laffer curve. Lowering tax rates actually increases the tax take.
You pay for tax cuts with debt, that’s why the national debt will be close to 50 trillion by 2030. The great ponzi scheme will continue and accelerate under Trump. Watch what happens, the first thing he needs to do is get rid of the debt ceiling problem. The billionaires are going to soak the US dry, with tax cuts for themselves and with military techno contracts, and a privatized space program for Musk. By 2030 the people will be so screwed. That’s why the billionaire crowd is jumping for joy.
Spot on DC
No, spending is paid for with debt…fairly straightforward really…
Tell that to Chip Roy MC. Only takes 1-2 flips and it ain’t passing.
Unfortunately life isn’t quite like your fantasy land. But as intriguing you seem to favour the Billionaires. Hmm ask Steve Bannon if he agrees.
The fantasy is spending when there is not enough money to pay for it…and borrowing to plug the gap…
Trump will prioritise the Billionaire tax cuts in this but how will he pay for them?
A straw man and a false dilemma in one line. Will there be more logical fallacies? First, tax cuts benefit those who pay taxes. Several studies are available on who foots the bulk of the bill that you can consult. Hint: it’s not just billionaires. Second, tax cuts are not something that has to be paid for; it’s people keeping more of what is already there.
But that’s okay; you’re here to parrot the left’s talking points, sprinkling a bit of truth that governing can be difficult and GOPers are not that good at it. Perhaps they’ll be spurred into action this time around; otherwise, they’ll be a minority again.
Let’s see AL. Don’t take many to flip does it.
And the inflation risk quite acute, with tariffs too pushing in that direction. Billionaire tax cuts and jump inflation for the ‘little guy’ not quite what was envisaged. They’ll be Republicans v aware that happens and 2026 mid terms going to be v challenging. So proper battle in the House to ensue.
The feds could stop paying billions towards (often non-existent) charging stations, windmill islands, and solar panels, that require huge amounts of fossil fuels to construct and raise utility bills to the roof. Regulations throttling the energy sector could be eased or eliminated – this alone would boost the economy considerably, while lowering prices for food and fuel.
They could stop throwing money – again, billions of dollars’ worth – at vaguely defined “DEI initiatives,” that are at bottom do-nothing grifts.
They could arrest and incarcerate offenders who not only harm people, but cause tangible, material economic damage. They could repatriate illegal entrants who have no real way to survive in the US without expensive public assistance.
Finally, they could at least partly undo the costly and destructive censorship regime the Biden administration installed amongst tech and social media firms.
This would free the information economy and the digital forums where ideas are exchanged from propaganda and censorship, which would return us to a more reality based world, and allow us as a society to find sensible solutions to our problems, including the many problems Biden’s far left, rule-by-committee administration inflicted on us all.
Well presented, Andrew. If basic liberties are restored much of the rest can follow.
Watch what happens when they do the Math in the House AV. None of that getting anywhere near the Trillions the tax cuts cost. It’s going to be where the rhetoric starts to run into the reality. And then the Deportations and round ups ain’t going to be free either. Just further extend the debt? yeh that’ll hold them all together when they have to vote…not.
And the Pork Barrel in the House will ensure some of what you think should happen doesn’t because a Congressman ain’t going to clobber his own patch.
Trump won by a sliver in the House, and the battle for a budget that delivers his promises is where that reality bites hard. Something will have to give or it won’t get through. Thus watch for his priorities. They’ll be masked by red meat and spin but the budget signed off won’t lie. Billionaires first.
Trump’s orders certainly changed the culture for everyone in one fell swoop by removing the dystopian culture cloud of trans-politics, gender wars, citizen persecution for ‘wrong think’ & censorship impositions by the federal on businesses as well as other fascists gestures by the Biden Administration. The next four years if anything will be refreshing.
Maybe, and to be honest I’m personally not too bothered by some of those if I was a US citizen. Was in the RN for 22 years myself. Sons in the RM and rage about the lowering of fitness standards etc.
But ‘culture’ stuff doesn’t make a great deal of difference to the ‘little guy’ and ‘left behinds’. Good wages, secure jobs, access to decent healthcare, prices not rising faster than income – that’s what you should be looking for. The ‘Culture’ stuff has a role for Trump. Nice camouflage for the v Rich to fleece Americans again. Send home the 50% of agricultural workers, who happen to also be illegal, picking American crops and what happens to food prices?
Think carefully about whether you are being conned with some distractions.
But aren’t these ‘Helot’ migrants taking jobs Americans should be doing?
Rather like over here where we now have a huge, unproductive, entitled, feckless Benefit Class.
Well said! Not to mention the price of eggs, that’s if there are any.
Dream on, baby!
Maybe not doing any of this is an option, JW? How about continuing to do the same old things as before and hoping they’ll work out different this time? Oh no…….that’s the definition of insanity.
As a “little GAL,” not merely “left behind” but railroaded, I beg to differ on fundamental changes of the initial Executive Orders.
And on what CM? The Exec orders aren’t the same as a financial Reconciliation Bill. And they demonstrate his weakness. He has to use Exec orders because he knows getting permanent law passed much more difficult. You want laws passed really that can’t later also be overturned by a reverse order don’t you? I’m assuming you know the difference
He can’t build any detention centres or employ thousands more Sheriff Joe’s with an Exec order. But he can make you think he’s doing alot more than he is. Bit like the Panama canal stuff. Distraction technique whilst he gets the Billionaires their tax cuts.
Yep, it’s an oligarchy.
I believe you may misunderstand my primary reasonings for voting for DJT; for a Federal Government that functions in fundamental reality and rejects the nonsense, cultural infections that threaten my children. Contrary to the obnoxious, yet, popular assertions assumed of my demographic, the price of eggs was definitely not it.
For matters associated with candidates listed down the ballot, including and especially Congressional, I’ll be paying attention to the people that won on down the ballot.
The article was about the inevitable tensions within the Trump coalition that will erupt, and have already. Not about why some folks voted for him.
I think you’ll find the inflation spike many experienced the primary game changer between 2020 and 2024. Not the only one, but when folks feel poorer it makes a difference. Hence how budget and economy and promises all now get managed why the tensions are erupting.
On a personal level, many don’t need to worry about the metaphorical price of eggs, but many do.
I understand the article.
My reply to you was in response to the rigid musing of your initial statements…a “little guy” that “rallied to his flag” that is experiencing fundamental changes from Trump’s first EOs.
Well presented and interesting essay. The Jacksonian experience, warts and all, does provide important insights. Trump is frankly a far better les violent version of Jackson. Let’s hope that the democrat oligarchy doesn’t continue their mutiny and insurrection.
Andrew Jackson was a distinguished military commander, Trump was a draft dodger.
Jackson’s greatest military achievement was New Orleans, where frankly he triumphed due to ‘our’ rank incompetence.
I would argue that eliminating the threat of Seminole Indian raids by conquering Spanish Florida entirely is a greater achievement in a technical military sense, as it was a campaign rather than a single battle, but then the Spanish were a good deal less competent than the British, so I can see the argument either way.
Having triumphed at Bladensburg and North Point ‘we’ obviously thought the Yankees would ‘run away’.
Jackson’s inspired leadership prevented that, and restored a little American ‘ honour’.
What’s ‘dangerous’ about having public support?
This article comes the closest yet to understanding what has really happened…that Trump was a Democrat, and still is. Bernie Sanders’ ilk has taken the Democrat name and stuffed it full of his Socialist policies. The old war-mongering Republicans are now the RINOs. Trump took the middle as the new Republicans. JFK wanted to exit Vietnam, was for lower taxes and strong borders. Trump follows that same path. JFK didnt have to worry that government had grown out of control–because it hadnt yet–so that wasn’t an issue for him.
Trump knew he couldn’t win as a Democrat bc the Democratic machine wouldnt let him. But the Republicans don’t have the same coordination. So he came down the elevator as a businessman posing as a Republican and pushed common sense solutions that appeal to commen sense voters. Historically the fringe has defined both parties. But with the American fringe becoming so extreme, he saw that it was time for a party that appeals to common sense. And that’s why he created MAGA.
Very true. There’s a yearning for that ‘common sense’ approach in the UK too, which explains the growing popularity of Reform. And why shouldn’t populists be populr?
While I agree with you on the RINO comment, there is no way that Trump is a Democrat even with your explanation
He was always a Democrat. He was even pro-Choice. He’s still pro-Choice. Lower taxes, peace, strong borders (remember the Cuban Missile Crisis). He’s a Kennedy Democrat. Tulsi, Elon, RFK…all Democrats. Did they become MIC Republicans? No. LGBTQ+, climate hoax, open borders Democrats? No. That’s the New Democrats, i.e., the Sanders Socialists.
I don’t think low taxes has been a Democrat goal. It is true that some past Democrats were much better than today’s on taxes and economic growth. I doubt that Trump thinks in terms of Republican or Democrat. Not because he’s a libertarian (he’s not) but because he focuses on his priorities and those happen to align better with today’s Republicans.
And yesterday’s Democrats.
Agree with most things you say except this: Sanders Socialists
You’re missing the large influence of Hillary Clinton – one of the founding mothers of Wokeism. The reason Democrats went into overdrive on identity politics was because of Sanders (they saw he was going to win), but that doesn’t make them Sanders socialists.
Thank you for that erudite explanation.
Sadly there is little chance of MBGA*, as ‘we’ slowly sink into the “Pit of Eternal Stench”.
*Make Britain Great Again. (Or should that be England perhaps?)
“MEGA” has a nice ring to it!
It certainly does!
If only we could rid ourselves of the parasitical Scotch, Irish, and Welsh.
Ha, you do jest so well Sir! I almost feel a Monty Python sketch coming on :
Q. What did the Welsh & Scots Irish ever do for us?
A. ..well all those Welsh coal mines were quite useful to grow the empire I suppose…and Stevenson’s steam engine wasn’t too bad ..and Adam Smith economics…Robert Boyles chemistry was fairly handy…I could go on.
Maybe the missing frisson required for capitalism to generate wealth would work better if we figured out how to make the Union work better and thereby stimulate more growth for all of us.
England , left to its own devices , is in danger of stagnating.
Still, at least you can moan and drink Guinness.
?
And read James Joyce.
Cornish tin miners developed modern mining. Wales and Scotland played their part but the main force of the scientific, Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions were the English- F Bacon, Hooke, Boyle, Newton, city of London , Newcomen, Townsend, J Tull, J Brindley, Arkwright, Wedgewood, Darby, Wilkinson, Arkwright, G and R Stephenson, Brunels, Dalton, M Boulton, Priestley, Darwin, Faraday.
A Smith, J Watt and Clerk Maxwell were Scottish.
Aeronautical engineers were English Camm, Michell, Wallis, de Havilland, Hooker, Chadwick, Whittle,
QED, thank you.
Scotland, Ireland and Wales were English investment projects and very profitable ones at that for a period. Without English ‘gold’ all would have remained in the state of primitive medieval barbarism we found them in.
Furthermore the English Empire 1603-1706 owed little or nothing to Scotland, Ireland or wee little Wales.
Incidentally I think you will find the Stevensons were English from Northumberland, whilst Boyle was Anglo-Irish, a polite way of saying English. Adam Smith off course as you rightly say was Scotch, but he would have been the first to recognise that Scotland or North Britain as he called it was a mere adjunct to the City of London.
England is certainly ‘stagnating’ under the enormous weight of a greedy, malignant, unproductive Public Sector, and the pension liabilities that also entails. Frankly we need a Mr Musk to execute a policy of ‘slash and burn’. Hopefully he would do far better than the worthless Dominick Cummings of recent memory.
As a citizen of the Irish Republic I’m happy to say we rid ourselves of the parasitical English 100 years ago. But I agree you boys need a MEGA movement in a hurry!
How ungrateful!
Didn’t nice Mr Cameron ‘bail you lot out’ a few years ago?
Usual arguments. I suppose that Wales is already great and England is lagging behind.
Wales “great”?
Surely you jest and I don’t just mean the Rugby!
MUGA – Make UK Great Again. Unfortunate homophone, but possibly the woke will give it a pass through having a deprived childhood.
Build a beautiful Britain. What works well , looks good. I give you :- St Pauls; Chippendale, Sheraton and Hepplewhite Furniture; a tea clipper; Georgian houses, The Spitfire- near perfect aerodynamics for a propeller plane, Severn Suspension Bridge( uses a third of the steel of a former bridge) and E type Jaguar ( most beautiful car in the World – Enrico Ferrari ), Saville Row bespoke suit.
All exhibit grace.
Angela Rayner said she did not understand beauty : describes Labour beautifully As M Muggeridge said Marxism is an urban religion for people with a grudge against their fellow man and civilisation.
None of the items mentioned above can be created and built by those who harbour a grudge because a grudge is ugliness.
What do all the items you mention have in common? They are all products of a Britain long forgotten.
They are all designed by people who appreciate grace and quality. The way air flows around a Spitfire, E Type Jaguar and Severn suspension Bridge, the accoustics of St Pauls, the way a Saville Row suit moves
Welcome back Charles, Unherd seems to be slightly different place since you last commented.
I don’t think England/GB’s quite “done for” yet though. As i’ve commented elsewhere, there were many voices commenting that the US was lost, but now, not so.
Thank you, and yes “while there’s life there’s hope”!
You’re back! Couldn’t stay away, huh?
Had to be rebooted, octuple bypass!
Alfred the Great achieved it. England was in a far more terrible situation than today. We also achieved a rebirth after The Anarchy, War of Roses and Civil War. What we need is some hard pruning which can revinvigorate tired plants.
I agree, but can we find another Alfred or Cromwell?
Most of our State School teachers have a visceral loathing of this country and all that it stood for. It’s in the DNA.
Yet somewhat ironically they expect the rest of the World to listen to us when we bleat on about such rubbish as ‘ Climate Change’, despite the fact we can only to manage to produce slightly less than 1% of global emissions!
In Britain a certain type of Trotskyism has developed which has infected the left wing middle classes. This Trotskyism combines self hatred, resentment, bitterness and spite towards anybody who is more noble of spirit, sophisticated, elegant and graceful than them, past or present.
Bevan Prescott, Starmer, Abbot, Thornberry are all examples of this attitude. Ernest Bevin was a working class John Bull ( Churchill’s phrase )who respected toughness, honesty and patriotism- hence his praise of public school boys in Battle of Britain.
The Trotskyists complain about class but their problem is their character which is defined by a lack of nobility of spirit. If on wants rags to riches stories I give you – archers of Middle Ages, Drake, Captain Cook RN , Thomas Telford, George Stephenson, E Bevin.
Compare Prescott with his chip on his shoulder and Commodore Sir James Gordon Partridge Bisset who started his career as an ordinary seaman.
James Gordon Partridge Bisset – Wikipedia
Going through life with a chip on the shoulder and with eyes green with envy give one a distorted view.
Sadly that malignancy is still alive and thriving, even in our premier Universities, not to mention our entire political class.
It’s rather a case of “Hate keeps a man alive” as Jack Hawkins put it so eloquently in a wonderful 1959 ‘blockbuster’ film.
Shalamov who survived in the Gulag from 1937 to 1955 said spite.
What I Saw and Learned in the Kolyma Camps // Varlam Shalamov
I offer a couple of friendly amendments regarding JFK. First, it would be more accurate to say that he got us into Vietnam, not out. Second, he stole the 1960 election from Nixon. Indeed, one could make the case that Trump is closer to Nixon, rather than Kennedy. But there is case for both positions which is precisely Ahmari’s point.
I wasn’t saying that JFK was a paragon of virtue (apparently with respect to his relations with women, at least, he made Trump look like a prude), only that Trump has a lot of policy similarities to him, which is not surprising as JFK was a role model for many Democrats of Trump’s generation. You would think that Trump being a relative Peacenik would make him even more appealing to the Democrats’ base.
Seems like he’s being provocative over the Suez Canal and could well get the US into a war there.
Panama Canal. Not too worried about that.
What with Panama?
Haven’t you already done that with that Noriega chap?
Not sure about “stole” the 1960 election?? Nixon spent less, his campaign spread thin over all 50 states and JFK only did the swing states. It was a close race, both parties had dirty states (iL, PA – Dems – FL, TX Gop). Maybe the Democrats (“Demrats” from 2008) did cheat a little bit more? see Bush in 2000 with the “hanging chads”. Either way its not huge vote fraud and theft like 2020. That year in person votes were c50/50 BUT postal votes were 75% in favour of the ‘rats.If it looks like a rat, smells like a rat and walks like one….In 2020 many counties had vote counts that far exceeded the registered votes available. Other “winners” elected by over 100% of voters include Papa Doc (Haiti) and Charles King (Liberia). Clearly sleepy Joe was a wrong ‘un but hardly Papa or even Baby Doc. The people behind Biden are as bad or worse than the Duvaliers. Their running dogs, Hamas and Tren De Aragua are easily as bad as the Ton-Tons Macoute. 2024 saw large ‘rat vote surges toward the end of the count – again postal votes. Not enough to win but showing Mayor Daly’s Demrat voting system is alive and well: “Vote early and vote often”. It speaks volumes that the rats couldn’t find enough thieves and grifters to pull them over the line, despite legalising theft and fentanyl dealing as part of their DEI initiative!
He didn’t steal the 1960 election and his involvement in Vietnam was minuscule compared to subsequent presidents Johnson and Nixon.
OSS officers in Indo China at the end of WW2 said Vichy French support for Japan strengthened Hoi Chi Minh. De Gaulle forced the USA State Department to support return of France. Mounbatten warned of the danger. In 1946 Britain sent a brigade or two of jungle fighters who nearly defeated the Viet Minh . Forty British soldiers were killed and 2700 Viet Minh. The British had to return to India and the French had no experience of jungle fighting and were defeated in 1954.
The USA became involved by default but had no experience of jungle fighting. It took the British two years to learn how to fight in the jungle and we had people like Orde Wingate and Freddy Spencer Chapman, M Calvert and B Ferguson.
The French gave the USA a poisoned chalice.
Why didn’t ‘we’ use Japanese troops as we had done in the Dutch East Indies? I gather they performed impeccably.
We did.
Actually, he always claimed to be a Republican, but to your point, he has been remarkably consistent even going back to when he first appeared on the public stage in the 80’s to drop the odd political comment into his interviews. He was ranting about free trade not being free and other countries not paying their fair share way way back when the first Bush was President. He basically considered himself economically conservative and socially liberal. He was interested in Ross Perot’s Reform Party back in the 90s and ran for the nomination once before dropping out. Most of his views on trade and foreign policy have changed very little.
The Democratic Party however over the past several decades became obsessed with race, internationalism, social justice, and managed to link these things together in what might be termed a global neo-socialist world order. If you look at globalist views on everything from the legacy of colonialism to climate change, all the hallmarks are right there plain to see. There’s the need to redistribute wealth based on notions of fairness, the fixation on collective outcomes, and the demand that people work and toil for some nebulous notion of the collective good rather than their own self-interest. The Republicans were less compromised by this ideology but played along because it benefited their relatively wealthier members and much of it was perfectly compatible with their traditional free trade leanings. Thus, the political center moved very strongly and surprisingly quickly toward what we now call the globalist narrative. It worked. It redistributed wealth from the west to China and other places and the globalists celebrated that while the factories closed and the factory workers became Wal-Mart greeters making a fraction of what they had. Many people did buy in to the social justice causes and the media went right along with reporting all those collective outcomes in terms of diversity, equity, and you know the rest. It should have been obvious based on the last two centuries of history that this was never going to work, but that’s the problem with socialist types. They moralize history rather than learn from it. It should have been obvious that the people would protest and demand a reckoning, but then socialist/collectivist types never have been known for their common sense or for having realistic expectations.
For most of his life, Trump was considered a kook on the fringe for saying many of the exact same things he said in 2016. The difference is that the political establishment and the super wealthy elites had shifted so far over that same period that what once sounded like the rantings of a clueless celebrity now sounded better than either alternative that was being offered by the establishment, and here we are. It all winds back to the failures of our elite class and their global mindsets. They became focused on global goals and global outcomes. They would have eventually failed because such policies are as inconsistent with human nature in 2020 as they were in 1920. Communism didn’t work then and won’t work now. They ended up failing much quicker because they failed to understand how much their ‘global system’ depended on the military supremacy of one country and failed to guard against the rise of any opposition, and because they underestimated the capacity of the people to recognize what was happening and organize politically to stop it.
Excellent analysis.
“… that Trump was a Democrat, and still is ….”
Indeed. Trump was and is a Classic Liberal, both in his defense of economic liberties as well as his defense of civil liberties within the United States. I surmise that after his win in 2016, Democrats and Neocon Republicans greatly feared that Trump might be a unifying President that could transcend rigid Democrat and Republican ideologies of the time.
Nothing focuses the mind – especially of a politician – like potentially losing one’s political career, perks, networks and power in DC to a ‘Mr Smith Goes To Washington’ political upstart.
Thus, the 2016-plus goal for Democrats and the Republican Neocons/Never Trumpers was to label (“Nazi! Hitler! Russian Spy! Capitalist!”), stigmatize and disrupt Trump so that he’d hopefully become a half-term President, before he gathered enough support from both Democrat and Republican hoi polloi in the country to solidify a new political base. The added perk for Democrats was that they were given card blanche in governmental departments to wreak havoc on Trump because Hillary.
Trump’s greatest weakness in all of this, after his win in 2016, was that he extrapolated his learned sportsmanship in business to politics. Trump will call names and be a tough negotiator with anyone who gets into the ring with him, but once a negotiation or competition is won fair and square, he turns around, shakes hands with his opponents and can work together with them in the future … no hard feelings. This is how one gets construction work done in New York. But the petty toxicity and political hubris in DC meant that when Trump let his guard down and tried this approach of naive sportsmanship in 2016, he was hampered at every turn by those who sought to thwart democracy and the citizens’ choice for President. Democrats and Neocon/Never Trumper Republicans worked in darkness and secrecy to destroy him.
Those in DC didn’t understand: Trump was ahead of the curve. He was out there in an old-school way, visiting the forgotten towns and forgotten men and women that other candidates would merely send their psychoanalysts and statisticians to visit or look at from a distance via data, as if they were analyzing an ant colony. Trump understood the disconnect between the empty words of politicians and the reality ‘on the ground’ in America. And he used this approach once again in 2024 to great success.
In about 100 words* you have encapsulated the whole saga, a perfect précis if I may say so.
*Your last paragraph.
Interesting remark about power of just ❝promising good things to come❞ without being too specific. Jack Goldstone noted this in his short book on revolutions. I quote at some length:
❝Interestingly, research has shown that revolutionary ideologies need not provide a precise future plan to unite and motivate their followers. Rather, what works best are vague or utopian promises of better times ahead combined with a detailed and emotionally powerful depiction of the intolerable injustice and inescapable evils of the current regime.❞ (Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction).
Trump plays this to perfection
The greatest upset in the world is that Trump, the fool, has become the trickster—the jester, the holy fool. He has his own social media platform where he will never be kicked out, meaning he can still reach people without needing the traditional tech pros!
A lot of people are saying Gilded Age is coming, but I would argue that the Golden Era is coming. Making/building/creating things not just buying things! There will be some pain but better to have a pain where you can see the light at the end of the curve!
If you want to watch an interesting movie, I recommend Earth 2100. There’s a fascinating clip in that film where the United Nations meets around 2015, discussing climate change. Now, I know a lot of people don’t like talking about climate change, and that’s okay—this is just to make a point. In that UN meeting, China and India said they did not have the technology for climate change—that was about ten years ago. And US said it was too expensive to do so by 2025!
And you know what? China did exactly what the U.S. refused to do. That’s why China is ahead—because they take on challenges that Americans avoided due to the cost for billionaires. Meanwhile, the CCP were like we own the billionaires!
So don’t underestimate Trump. He’s had eight years to learn the game. At this point, that’s like a PhD-level education in power and governance.
Hope you are right – looking at the votes i am not sure they understand that you’re comment appears to cast Trump in a positive light. The tradition of the holy fool is a noble one – sometimes you need to be a bit neuro-diverse to get things done – Geo Washington (historical figure) and Jesus of Nazareth ( probably a fictional one) are good examples. Just cos someone is a bit crazy doesn’t mean they can’t do a good job.
Trump isn’t crazy. He’s stupid.
You may not understand the difference – although lord only knows how after his blundering last time around – but you soon will…
IKR – CCP motto: “you’re only a billoinaire for life”
Close, but not quite. I doubt there was much “drunken revelry”, just joy at shedding the yoke of Fascist/Socialist/Communist Dems (pick one or all). There is a vibe of optimism that has grown since Election Day and it is as they say, complicated. Credit goes to Trump, for the great political comeback and Musk for outing the Government/Tech censorship. What a lot of folds don’t realize is that Trump loves America, and most importantly Americans. Something the Dems have a hard time understanding and wandered into a bizarre wilderness. They paid for it and if Trump and the Republicans are clever, the Dems could be out of power for at least 12 years. As far as coalitions, Trump threatened the House Repubs who were grandstanding on Johnsons Speaker appointment, and they came into line. I can’t remember that happening with Republicans.
There will be huge obstacles, nasty fights, but this is the American way but I believe this will be different and much, much better for the American citizens. Certainly a hell of a lot better than the last 4 years.
“ It turns out that doing popular things can make for good politics. Democrats today don’t seem to grasp this banal truism.”
This is so of most mainstream politicians in most liberal democracies at the moment. And they all whinge about the rise of the right wing as if it were all the fault of ignorant, unintelligent thugs, which is to say ordinary people outside their elite bubble.
I’d say the key thing to remember is that the Democratic presidents — Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Obama, Biden — just amped up spending into the stratosphere. Because votes, and “planning” philosophy.
The populists are just rebelling against this. Because they get taken to the cleaners.
This guy seems to not understand that Trump spent more of them put together and will do so again.
A simple reading of the numbers will show that Republicans never cut spending overall.
As for the contemptible Musk and his ludicrous DOGE, we’ll see how far he gets before Trump gets rid of him. Ramaswamy didn’t even make to the inauguration!
Musk (unconsciously) thinks he has found in Trump, at long last, the father he always longed for, not realizing that Trump is yet another “snake oil salesman” like his real father. If and when he ever grasps that he has yet again been deceived, all hell will break loose. I hope I live long enough to see it.
Me too!
“He’s just with us,” an Air Force man told me. “I don’t care about this or that policy. He has our backs.”
It is this level of delusion that has taken Trump back the the White House. Anyone who believes that Trump cares one jot about anyone other than himself is operating without anything approaching a full deck.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/fallen-soldiers-widow-angry-trumps-call-couldnt-remember/story?id=50655063
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-questioned-kellys-sons-sacrifice-on-memorial-day-grave-visit-2020-9
It is truly amazing that these morons will cheer a president attacking trans kids who have done nothing wrong except be a bit confused at their own sexuality while supporting rapists like Trump, DUI hire Hegseth and soon-to-be-felon Matt Gaetz.
Where are your heads at?!?!?
You LOST, get over it.
Who in their right mind was going to vote for a shrieker like Harris shackled to a corpse like Biden?
I didn’t lose a thing, old chap. Not my election to vote in, don’t ye know?!?!
I think anyone who watched Harris demolish Trump in the one debate he gathered the nerve to show up for would have quickly concluded that she was far more capable than the old buffoon and would have made a far better president. Unfortunately most voters seemed more interested in whatever Joe Rogan or Elon Musk were obsessing about at any particular moment. Pity.
You sound so excited I took you for an American, my sincere apologies.
I must say I thought Harris came across as a hectoring harridan, only marginally better than the ‘corpse’ himself.
I hope Trump vetoes Mandelson’s appointment? Do we really want such a creature representing us in the US?
As for the foul mouthed David Lammy, Trump should refuse to engage with such an obvious cretin.
As to Mr Elon Musk I am undecided, but am slightly haunted by the fact that he may turn out to be rather like that gross disappointment of ours, one Dominick Cummings Esq.
Still we shall have to give him the benefit of the doubt at this stage.
I’ve made the Jackson-Trump connection in the comments section a few times before. I wonder if Unherd is taking ideas for articles from me. Well probably not, as it’s no great leap of logic to compare the two. For those who know American history, the comparison is so obvious that it needn’t even be said, but for those who don’t know the history, Jackson was every bit the instigator and every bit the agent of chaos Trump was. When he was still a general in the army, he basically conquered Spanish Florida without any orders or authorization to do so because he felt like it should be part of the US. Like Trump, he was considered rude, uncouth, boorish, and unfit for high office. Like Trump, he made a point to oppose bankers, traders, and other coastal elites and campaigned as a man of the people. One of his principle promises was to shut down the Bank of the United States, the single greatest symbol of wealth and elitism at the time, and he kept his promise. Like Trump, he appointed friends and allies to cabinet posts rather than party regulars. His ascension to the Presidency is generally designated by most historians as the end of the old Democratic-Republican party which was ideologically tied to Jefferson and the beginning of the modern Democratic Party. Generations of Democrats proudly traced their heritage and history as a party of the people back to Andrew Jackson and regarded him as the founder of their party. Only recently, when it became fashionable to view history through the lens of modern race relations did Jackson’s racism, which was notable even by the standards of the time, lead to his falling out of favor with the party he started. As with Trump, the people in power conspired against him in every possible way. Despite winning the most electoral and popular votes in the election of 1824, Jackson failed to win a majority of electoral votes and the election was decided by the House of Representatives, who chose John Quincy Adams instead. Jackson then accused Adams of conspiring with then Speaker of the House Henry Clay to deny the people’s will, calling it the ‘corrupt bargain’ election. Four years later, he won a decisive victory. As President, Jackson survived the first ever attempted assassination of a President when the assassin’s pistols misfired. Jackson then proceeded to beat the would be assassin with his cane, and probably would have beaten the man to death had he not been held back by some of his political colleagues. One can easily see the comparison to Trump’s similarly defiant reaction to an attempted assassination.
The parallels are so remarkable that it’s stunning. America never has had much of a defining culture, certainly not the way England or France or Germany have a distinct culture. There are, however, certain threads that do connect and can be traced throughout American history. One of these is the tendency of the nation to embrace unconventional, defiant, and combative personalities in their leaders. Trump and Jackson are hardly the only two to fit this mold in one or another aspect, just the two most obvious, and the two most deeply hated by elites and rejected by the political establishment. The American people can be a demanding bunch, and they have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to punish elites of whatever type for presuming to rule them or know what’s best. There is a spirit of contrarianism, a combativeness, in Americans that runs deeper than other places. Americans are rebels, rebels who came to an unknown land to practice their unconventional religion, rebels who came to escape the control of feudal nobles and build their own fortunes, rebels who overthrew the British for daring to rule them, rebels who left their home countries to brave the frontier, rebels who fled communism or fascism or totalitarianism, rebels who demand the government should answer to them, not the other way round, and they’ll raise all manner of hell and elect anybody they want to make sure that point is crystal clear to anyone concerned. Americans are pretty comfortable with authoritarianism for a while, when it’s necessary, and when they choose. Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and now Trump as well all had some fairly strong authoritarian inclinations. Americans embraced them with enthusiasm as a necessary temporary measure because what Americans truly despise and will not abide is aristocracy. They’ll fight back, through whatever means they can until they manage to force the aristocrats to serve the people, or constrain them through the law, or just intimidate them by electing vicious and combative men like Jackson and Trump to act as their avatars. I don’t fear men like Jackson or Trump. They are, in the end, just tools of the people to put the aristocrats in their proper place, a check against the rise of oligarchy. The election of Trump serves a single purpose above all others, to remind bureaucrats, internationalists, elites, the super wealthy, foreign governments, and even allied governments, that they are not in charge here. In America, the people rule. If they disapprove of the establishment, if they believe that their leaders aren’t putting the wants and needs of the people first, they will take away the power of elites, and give it to whoever comes along that elites hate the most. They’ve done it before, and they’ll do it again as often as it needs to be done to remind whoever needs reminding. Judging by how the likes of Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos have lined up to kiss the ring, it seems the message is finally getting through to some of the people that needed to hear it.
If they had continued their defiance, if they had maintained their opposition to Trump and MAGA even after a decisive popular defeat, that would be something to fear. It’s been a long time since Americans had to go beyond political methods to defend the notions of freedom, about 180 years to be precise, but they will, if they have to. The last time was a war against a bunch of landed aristocrats who thought owning other people was acceptable. Pushed too far, Americans will still choose to fight for their freedom rather than be ruled by elites. That’s something I don’t want to see. I don’t want things to get so bad, for the gap between the public and the ruling class to get so large that there’s no way to fix it but through a destructive revolution. I don’t want any group of elites or politicians to ever think they can afford to ignore the people. There are many things worse than Trump. I don’t like Trump as a person or a politician, but I respect the reason he’s there, and I respect the message the people are sending. That message is a necessary one. When Jefferson said a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, I’m convinced this is what he meant. If you have a little rebellion on occasion through normal political means, you don’t have to have a big bloody revolution later on. A little fear in the minds of the would be rulers goes quite a ways to keeping America a democratic republic rather than something else.
In The West over the last 60 years there has been a massive growth in middle class humanities graduates who producing nothing of practical use. These people have greatly increased in numbers both being employed by the state and latterly in universities and DEI /Human Resources departments in companies.
Taxpayers money has been diverted from useful practical expenditure on skilled manual employment and engineering to useless white collar employment. Robert Michels, Charles Northcote Parkinson and Major General Glubb have written on the subject. Taxes are raised to pay for the bureaucracy and costs of lawyers due to laws implemented.
The Democrat/Labour Party has moved from parties representing productive blue collar manual workers to unproductive middle class white collar workers employed by the state and human resources and legal departments of companies. Trump is altering government expenditure back to favouring productive blue collar manual workers over unproductive white collar workers. Illegal immigration is major disadvantage to honest hard working un and semi skilled manual workers as it reduces their wages.
For example bad schools and crime within cities adversely impacts on the quality of lives of honest hardworking manual workers and has no impact on white collar employees of state ( national or local ) or those working in the private sector living in affluent secure suburbs.
Having employment based on assessment other than merit allows inferior people to be employed. As Democrats control most cities, the Democratic Party is able to favour it’s supporters by mploying inferior people. This is major disadvantage to those who live in cities who depend upon public schools and the Police. Very few public schools teach to high enough standards to enable pupils to enter top 10 university departments in ngineering(MIT, Stanford)), medicine, maths, physics, chemistry which increases social disadvantage . Those living in the suburbs who can afford private education benefit as it reduces competition for top university places.