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The Trump phenomenon may be starting to happen again, despite the former president’s profound legal problems.
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Burris: Breaking down Trump

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Burris: Breaking down Trump

An old friend asked me to speak to his students about Donald Trump.

“He’s an enigma,” he said.

He’s a phenomenon, anyway.

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And the Trump phenomenon may be starting to happen again — perhaps aided by his profound legal problems. And at least one prosecution that seems pointless.

President Biden arrives for Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington on Saturday.
Keith C. Burris
Burris: Grandpa Joe without tears?

But so much emotion surrounds Mr. Trump, from both adorers and haters, that we usually fail to break down the phenomenon dispassionately, piece by piece.

Let’s try.

First: The man.

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Mr. Trump is not a normal American politician, and he was not a normal president.

He is outside of the accepted and expected range of behavior — attacking everyone from John McCain, to Mitch McConnell, to Gold Star parents; refusing to attend his successor’s inauguration; and adopting as his key issues trade and de-industrialization, which were not previously Republican issues at all.

Candidate Trump in 2016, was: Intuitive. Aggressive. Street smart.

And above all, an amateur. And therefore somewhat reckless.

He might have turned some of these qualities to his advantage with just a little discipline.

Many Americans, half the country in fact, thought that, hoped that.

He didn’t.

Instead he became more amateurish and more reckless.

Now, with the benefit of six years of watching his personality almost daily, other disturbing qualities have become clear, and I don’t just mean his insecurity or vulgarity.

For one thing, Mr. Trump displays few signs of an inner life. He calculates, he talks, and he reacts. But he does not appear to actually think, just as he does not ask voters to think.

Is this lack of self-awareness and personal accountability a form of charisma?

Rage speaks to rage?

Maybe.

Second: Mr. Trump’s politics does have a precedent — the tradition of American populism.

His antecedents range from Andrew Jackson to Huey Long and George Wallace.

The trouble with populism is that it is a posture, a reaction; not a philosophy, a program, or a plan.

The Founders were elitists, as is a modern conservative like George Will. They believed in seriousness and skill in statecraft, and they deeply distrusted politics as emotion.

They had a point.

James Madison said the clever demagogue inevitably turns into the tyrant. And Mr. Trump has proved the axiom.

But the populists also have a point. Elites are inherently self-dealing and thus self-corrupting. And they, also by definition, don’t know how ordinary and poor folk live.

That’s why the Founders invented the U.S. House. And why they believed so firmly in checks on all power.

No powerful person, or entity, or emotion should ever simply be trusted.

All power corrupts. And populism can be a check.

Third: Trump’s governance.

We don’t have to imagine a Trump presidency. We have a record.

Those who said, “let’s see,” have seen.

In office, Mr. Trump was a guy who would not, or could not, learn. He didn’t listen. He didn’t work. He fired competent people and turned more and more to cranks and sycophants.

He became not just an amateur but a wrecker. This inability or unwillingness to do his work wrecked his administration.

One has to go back to Warren Harding to find a president so indifferent to the craft of government.

The left and the press did not destroy the Trump presidency, though both would have been pleased to do so. Mr. Trump did.

Fourth and finally: Care for the republic. True patriotism.

The former president does not understand the office he held, our constitutional system, the idea of the country, or the country as a complex whole.

He does understand a part of the country — his base and its outer reaches. He channels their sense of loss and betrayal. There is nothing beyond this.

Mr. Trump’s increasing embrace of fascistic tropes and appeals, since November, 2020 — most notably his incitement of the January, 2021, Capitol attack and his doomsday speech in Waco, Texas in late March —- shows that he is willing to wreck more than himself. He has given up on our Constitution and democracy, because both have disappointed him. His authoritarian tendencies, once latent or implied, and his fascist appeals, once somewhat veiled, have become overt.

Is this who he always was? Did he go off a deep end? Or, is his increasing radicalism a cynical attempt to hold his base? No one can be sure.

But make no mistake, Mr. Trump’s overt pitch for 2024 is going to be to forsake law, order, constitutional limits, and an open, pluralistic society for his brand of strong-man rule. His return to office would likely mean serial impeachments and rebellion by the military and the entire executive branch: instant and continual constitutional crisis.

It would be a ceaseless storm of chaos and discontent. Tragic buffoonery on an epic scale.

Keith C. Burris is the former editor, vice president, and editorial director of Block Newspapers. Contact him at: burriscolumn@gmail.com.

First Published April 30, 2023, 4:00 a.m.

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The Trump phenomenon may be starting to happen again, despite the former president’s profound legal problems.  (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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