Trumpism
Trumpism is the political ideology behind Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, and his political base. It is often used in close conjunction with the Make America Great Again and America First political movements. It comprises ideologies such as right-wing populism, right-wing antiglobalism, national conservatism and neo-nationalism, and features significant illiberal, authoritarian and at times autocratic beliefs. Trumpists and Trumpians are terms that refer to individuals exhibiting its characteristics. There is significant academic debate over the prevalence of neo-fascist elements of Trumpism.
Trumpism has been characterized by scholars as having authoritarian leanings and has been associated with the belief that the president is above the rule of law. It has been referred to as an American political variant of the far-right and the national-populist and neo-nationalist sentiment seen in multiple nations starting in the mid–late 2010s. Trump's political base has been compared to a cult of personality. Over the course of the late 2010s and early 2020s, Trump supporters became the largest faction of the Republican Party, with the remainder often characterized as "the elite", "the establishment", or "Republican in name only" in contrast. In response to these developments, many American conservatives opposed to Trumpism formed the Never Trump movement.
Background and context
Some political scientists have attempted to explain support for Trumpism from a societal perspective and in the broader context of a wave of right-wing populism that came to prominence in the 2010s, underpinning Brexit and Trump's 2016 election. Theories cited by scholars include the "left behind" thesis that posits that the rise of right-wing populism in the West finds its roots in individuals or communities that feel that they have been neglected by the development of society and political decision-makers. Trends of globalization and deindustrialization have been identified by scholars as having contributed to economic and social deprivation that underpins this theorized phenomenon.Some American scholars characterize the left behind thesis as a growing divergence between so-called "brain hubs" and "superstar cities" at one extreme and former manufacturing cities that have lost jobs and residents at the other. Others characterize the problem as being a divergence between regions that have enjoyed the benefits of globalization and technological advance and those that have borne the brunt of disruptive impacts related to these phenomena. A contested characterization of the left behind thesis is as a cultural backlash to long-term structural changes in gender equality, urban growth, education, immigration, economic instability, and terrorist attacks. The left behind theory has been supported and disputed by scholars and empirical research.
Eric Kaufmann's Whiteshift describes a Western societal trend in the 21st century that he says is perceived to be eroding white ethnic identity. He argues that Whiteshift and a progressive trope celebrating the projected demise of white majorities have been responsible for much of the reactionary populism since 2015. Kaufmann's thesis has received mixed reviews, with Kenan Malik criticising Whiteshift for omitting social context that he asserts is key to understanding politics.
Themes
Trumpism emerged during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Trump's rhetoric has its roots in a populist political method that suggests nationalistic answers to political, economic, and social problems. They are more specifically described as right-wing populist. Policies include immigration restrictionism, trade protectionism, isolationism, and opposition to entitlement reform.Former national security advisor and close Trump advisor John Bolton disputes that Trumpism exists in any meaningful sense, adding that "he man does not have a philosophy. And people can try and draw lines between the dots of his decisions. They will fail." Writing for the Routledge Handbook of Global Populism, Olivier Jutel notes, "What Donald Trump reveals is that the various iterations of right-wing American populism have less to do with a programmatic social conservatism or libertarian economics than with enjoyment."
Trump has been described as a demagogue, and there exists significant scholarly study on the use of demagogy and related themes within Trumpism. Trump explicitly and routinely disparages racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, and scholars consistently find that racial animus regarding blacks, immigrants, and Muslims are the best predictors of support for Trump. Trumpist rhetoric heavily features anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and nativist attacks against minority groups. Other identified aspects include conspiracist, isolationist, Christian nationalist, evangelical Christian, protectionist, anti-feminist, and anti-LGBTQ beliefs.
Grievance
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..."Vagueness
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."Exit polling data suggests the campaign was successful at mobilizing the "white disenfranchised", the lower- to working-class European-Americans who are experiencing growing social inequality and who often have stated opposition to the American political establishment.
Some prominent conservatives formed a Never Trump movement, seen as a rebellion of conservative elites against the base.
Right-wing authoritarian populism
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". The theory is a maximalist interpretation of presidential power formulated during the Reagan administration and pushed by the Federalist Society to undo post-Nixon reforms. Future presidents ran with "unitary-adjacent ideas" and aspects of theory held bipartisan support as part of the growing powers of the presidency. 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. The phrase itself is a variation of one attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, and was noted to be in line with his administration's aggressive push for expanding presidential power under the theory.Yale sociologist Philip S. Gorski warned against the threat of Trumpism, writing that
Some academics regard such authoritarian backlash as a feature of liberal democracies. Disputing the view that the surge of support for Trumpism and Brexit is a new phenomenon, political scientist Karen Stenner and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt state that
Stenner and Haidt regard authoritarian waves as a feature of liberal democracies noting that the findings of their 2016 study of Trump and Brexit supporters was not unexpected, as they wrote:
Author and authoritarianism critic Masha Gessen contrasted the "democratic" strategy of the Republican establishment making policy arguments appealing to the public, with the "autocratic" strategy of appealing to an "audience of one" in Donald Trump. Gessen noted the fear of Republicans that Trump would endorse a primary election opponent or otherwise use his political power to undermine any fellow party members that he felt had betrayed him.
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. 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, supporting congressional Republicans or opposing Democratic policies ".
Trumpism has been described as borrowing from the anti-parliamentarian political theory advocated by Carl Schmitt, and has received renewed attention as a historical reference.
Gender and masculinity
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." Michael Kimmel describes male Trump supporters who despaired "over whether or not anything could enable them to find a place with some dignity in this new, multicultural, and more egalitarian world.... These men were angry, but they all looked back nostalgically to a time when their sense of masculine entitlement went unchallenged. They wanted to reclaim their country, restore their rightful place in it, and retrieve their manhood in the process."Social psychologists Theresa Vescio and Nathaniel Schermerhorn note that "In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump embodied HM
Kimmel was surprised at the sexual turn the 2016 election took and thinks that Trump is for many men a fantasy figure, an uber-male free to indulge every desire. "Many of these guys feel that the current order of things has emasculated them, by which I mean it has taken away their ability to support a family and have great life. Here's a guy who says: 'I can build anything I want. I can do anything I want. I can have the women I want.' They're going, 'This guy is awesome!
Gender role scholar Colleen Clemens describes toxic masculinity as "a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression... where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly 'feminine' traits—which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual—are the means by which your status as "man" can be taken away." Writing in the Journal of Human Rights, Kimberly Theidon notes the COVID-19 pandemic's irony of Trumpian toxic masculinity: "Being a tough guy means wearing the mask of masculinity: Being a tough guy means refusing to don a mask that might preserve one's life and the lives of others."
Tough guy bravado appeared on the internet prior to attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, with one poster writing, "Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in.... Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die." Of the rioters arrested for the attack on the U.S. Capitol, 88% were men, and 67% were 35 years or older.
Opposition to transgender rights is a theme of Trumpism.