Letters from Tomis

Trumpism is less an ideology than a haphazard amalgamation of grievance, celebrity worship, and vulgar opportunism—a political phenomenon that owes more to the reality TV soundstage than to the seminar room or the public square. In the grand tradition of demagoguery, it promises everything, delivers nothing, and thrives on the chaos left in its wake. One might forgive a desperate populace for falling prey to such a glittering mirage, but one cannot excuse the intellectual surrender it demands.

First, let us consider the soon-to-be-president again, Donald Trump, whose name so generously provides the suffix. Trump is a pastiche of the worst qualities of American capitalism: boastful without achievement, wealthy without taste, and powerful without principle. To listen to him is to endure a torrent of self-congratulation punctuated by the sort of banalities that would shame a middling tabloid columnist. His language is not plain, everyday prose that pierces the soul; it is instead a stammering parade of half-truths, outright lies, and marketing slogans, the verbal equivalent of junk food.

And yet, Trumpism is not merely about Trump. It is a cultural virus that has taken hold of the body politic, thriving on resentment and stoking the embers of tribalism. Like all effective populist movements, it is fueled by a potent brew of nostalgia and paranoia. Its adherents pine for a mythical golden age when “America was great,” a time that never existed outside the fever dreams of campaign speeches. Simultaneously, they are gripped by a siege mentality, convinced that shadowy elites and foreign hordes conspire to rob them of their birthright. Trumpism offers no solutions to these supposed problems—how could it, when its diagnosis is a tissue of distortions?—but it thrives on the comfort of the scapegoat.

One cannot ignore, either, the complicity of the so-called intellectual class. For every populist strongman, there is an army of apologists who insist that his flaws are merely surface-level, his vulgarity an endearing quirk, his contradictions evidence of some inscrutable genius. In the case of Trump, this cottage industry of excuse-making has blossomed into a full-blown academic discipline. There are those who would have us believe that the erratic speeches and incoherent policies conceal a master strategy, that the man who cannot complete a sentence without invoking his own name is, in fact, playing a game of multidimensional chess. This, of course, is nonsense. Trump is not a strategist; he is an instinctual opportunist, a shark in a sea of discontent.

But here, I must confess a grim admiration—not for Trump himself, but for the ruthlessness with which he has exposed the moral bankruptcy of his enablers. The Republican Party, once the home of self-styled champions of free markets and small government, has gleefully embraced protectionism, cronyism, and executive overreach, provided these come wrapped in the garish trappings of MAGA. The evangelical right, ostensibly the guardians of moral rectitude, have bent over backward to defend a thrice-married casino magnate with a penchant for porn stars and a profound ignorance of scripture. If hypocrisy were an Olympic sport, Trumpism would dominate the medal count.

In the final analysis, Trumpism represents a profound failure of imagination. It is the politics of the lowest common denominator, a tawdry spectacle that substitutes volume for argument and spectacle for substance. It is a reminder that bourgeois democracy is not self-sustaining. It requires an informed citizenry, a robust press, and a political class capable of rising above the fray. In Trumpism, we see what happens when all three fail.

The question before us now is not whether Trumpism will endure beyond his next adminstration. It is, alas, resilient enough to outlive its progenitor, for its roots lie deep in the soil of ignorance and fear. The real challenge is whether we can summon the will to resist it—not with hand-wringing and moral outrage, but with the intellectual rigor and mass engagement it so conspicuously lacks. For if we fail, we may find ourselves not only ruled by the likes of Trump but deserving of them.