Trump’s Twisted Nationalism

To the former president, making America great again is about nothing more than making himself the most important person in the world.

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Former President Donald Trump speaks at CPAC on March 4, 2023. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Dear Reader (Excluding any law school deans who don’t understand the concept of free speech),

So today, two things happened almost simultaneously (actually, hundreds of trillions of things happened almost simultaneously today, but let’s not quibble). 

The former president, running for another term, attacked an undeclared rival for wanting to control spending and curtail government central planning of the economy.  

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  1. Slowdave1

    Thank you Jonah. Great synopsis of the Trump problem and it's support from Fox News in support of their audience's desires. How dare those %#&$ JOURNALISTS mess up what we've built going around telling the truth!! Ugh.

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  2. Jonathan Ross

    Your welcome

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    Ben Connelly

    “ Again, the remarkable thing about Tucker, who is smarter than most of his colleagues, is that he knew. He knew that Trump and Trumpism corrupt. But because he fancies himself the leader of his own little nation, a Belarus to Trump’s Russia, he couldn’t admit it publicly.”

    Glad you aren’t pulling your punches on Tucker.

    Trump was never like Reagan. That was always a myth. Reagan loved his country and Trump never did.

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  4. Pschneider_9332

    Tucker Carlson has interesting guests talking about interesting topics every night of the week.

    He also has his own opinions that he is entitled to and you are entitled to disagree with.

    But to discount the value of the former because you take exception to the latter is intellectually lame.

    Do you want a short list of those topics and guests to demonstrate the veracity of my contention?

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    1. Andrew W.

      You seem to not be keeping up with the news. Many (most?) of Tucker's political opinions, as evidenced in his personal texts and emails, seem to be diametrically opposed to the viewpoints and guests that he has publicly expressed on Fox News. We have a word for that, and it's not "veracity."

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      1. Pschneider_9332

        Can you give me examples, more than one, but less than 5, of personal texts and e-mails that are diametrically opposed to his public viewpoints and guests. Within the past year. Two years. Must be a slew of them, but I'm only asking for a few.

        Take your time.

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        1. Slowdave1

          There are two in the article. Done.

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          Gibby

          Are your two posts here intended to satirize the average trump/tucker defender? If so well done!

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  5. Jfan

    Thank you for the link to your 2016 essay in National Review, which let me laugh at your style again.

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  6. Eric.Lanser

    Jonah, Thank you.

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  7. Joe.Carlson

    Great piece! Supremely well done. That is all.

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  8. Joe1776

    "Don’t get me wrong, liberal journalists were in the narrative business, too. “Resistance,” “the walls are closing in,” “the Supreme Court’s sergeant-at-arms is on the way!”

    But Fox—and a lot of right-wing institutions—took it farther, to the point where a difference in degree became a difference in kind."

    No the difference is the actual reporters tend to be leftists to begin with. So they deliberately choose not to follow stories that show the lefts corruption. Here is just one of many examples:
    https://www.foxnews.com/media/credibility-crisis-cnn-boss-ordered-staff-not-chase-down-covid-lab-leak-theory

    No one *even asks* why Obama used a pseudonym when emailing Hillary's illegal server - even before he claimed to first find out about it from the New York Times article.
    https://www.businessinsider.com/obama-used-a-pseudonym-while-emailing-hillary-clinton-while-she-was-at-the-us-state-department-2016-9?op=1

    No one *even asks* what exactly Hunter Biden gave the Chinese in exchange for millions of dollars. No one even insists that Joe Biden answer whether he is the big guy or whether he in fact met Bobolynski. No one *even asks* whether Mueller knew of the blackmail done by Rosatom before the CFIUS approved the uranium one deal. (and if he did know why didn't he tell CFIUS?) They prefer to say all this was "debunked" but actually they never even offer basic information. They are too concerned about fact checking Trump on whether 2 people really were killed in Chicago when Obama gave some speech. I could go on and those are just minor players compared to the font of lies and refusal to expose people to facts regarding, Russiagate, 1619, Kavanaugh, and BLM .

    This of course does not absolve Fox for their own lying. We shouldn't tolerate any lying at all. But we shouldn't pretend that there is any sort of difference of kind. Both sides are presenting their own narrative and refusing to expose their audience to facts that contradict their narrative. That is the world we live in so people should just understand that they need to view different perspectives on stories.

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  9. Dynamis878

    Brilliant

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    Kizedek

    “But I’ve learned from experience that using fascism to describe economic policies makes people feel unsafe, and that too many people think corporatism means “rule by corporations”—which it doesn’t. Also, a great number of people—raised on the dirty intellectual bathtub residue of Marxism—are convinced that fascism was a rapacious capitalist enterprise. ”

    I would have thought the issue would be evident by now. It’s even in the title of the article. Fascism isn’t primarily described by economic principles. Its cultural dynamics are more significant than its economic dynamics. I don’t think that those who disagree with Jonah are “convinced that fascism was a rapacious capitalist enterprise”. They are convinced it was a rapacious *nationalist* enterprise.

    As the article goes on to show, through Trump’s economic schizophrenia, economic policy are pick and mix, and often matters of opportunism or convenience. And, it depends on the mechanisms in place in the context in which Fascism arises. Of course Fascism in 1930’s Italy is going to involve elements of socialism or adopt economic policies we tend to associate with socialism. It was 1930’s Italy. There are only so many ways you can keep things running. Everyone likes trains to run on time. Who wouldn’t? Economic policy has little to do with the motives and direction (rightward).

    The US is already right of center (the center being liberalism) compared to most modern nations, and the US right is getting more Nationalistic by the day, because they are gorging themselves on the rhetoric of grievance and conspiracy theory. This is right out of the populist’s Fascists Handbook. They don’t care about democracy, because they think “the people can’t be trusted to vote correctly and don’t know what’s good for them.”

    Those with fascistic tendencies are unashamedly authoritarian about pretty much everything *other than economic policies* — hence “culture wars”. They want to dictate a shared culture, not a shared economic reality!

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      Cogitatio

      "Fascism isn’t primarily described by economic principles. Its cultural dynamics are more significant than its economic dynamics."

      Fascism was only marginally less involved in economics than Communism, and both were heavily aimed at cultural dominance. Fascism was a bit less command economy driven, in that it allowed businesses to do what they wanted, as long as what they wanted conformed with what the fascists wanted. Communists just told you what "you" wanted. Both would round you up if you failed to conform.

      "The US is already right of center (the center being liberalism) compared to most modern nations, and the US right is getting more Nationalistic by the day, because they are gorging themselves on the rhetoric of grievance and conspiracy theory. This is right out of the populist’s Fascists Handbook. They don’t care about democracy, because they think “the people can’t be trusted to vote correctly and don’t know what’s good for them.”"

      An interesting statement. I actually agree that the far right has become very much as you describe them. My despair is that the far left was already there. Both sides gorge on "grievance and conspiracy theory." Both sides do not care about democracy. Both sides think the people need to be "educated" and controlled.
      The real difference between them is more a matter of flavor than substance, other than this: The Left has been practicing this far longer, and they are much better at it. They seek to control speech, punish transgressors, etc. The Right is new to this, and they are less refined, more turbulent. I see the Right as being at risk of creating Orwell's "1984." The Left is in danger of giving us "Brave New World" with a heavy splash of "1984" (consider how close the Left's control of language resembles "Newspeak"). And the Left is further along their path than the Right is.

      "They want to dictate a shared culture, not a shared economic reality!"

      The Left wants to dictate this far more than the Right, although there are parts of the Right that wants to do this as well. They are just not particularly good at it, whereas the Left is quite proficient at it.

      Look, I get the concern over the Right. I share it. I think Trump is a monster, and potentially a grave danger to the Republic. The guard rails held, but I have no desire to give him another chance to test them. But If you do not have the same -- and arguably greater -- concerns over the Left, well, I am not sure what to say. The crazies on the Right want to transform our culture into a twisted version. The crazies on the Left are actually doing it, right before our eyes.

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        Kizedek

        I don’t know that Communism WAS “heavily aimed at cultural dominance.”

        It did away with the old and destroyed any sense of traditional “belonging” and “identity”. It rejected the norms and icons and beliefs of tradition, and completely replaced it with a “blank slate”. It was almost entirely bereft of culture, and that led to the downfall of the Soviet Union. As was 1984, which was *based on the Communism of the Soviet Union*. The Chinese have learned better, and celebrate cultural traditions that the “Cultural Revolution” had all but purged and completely eradicated.

        Fascism (and its extreme branch Naziism) developed a strong sense of belonging based on their myth of identity and the authoritarian gatekeeper of that identity (more cosmopolitan for Italy, more northern Germanic for Germany).

        The populist right in the US has an extremely well-defined myth of identity and how society should look culturally if it were to be “correct”. (I am speaking of “myth” in the “larger than life” sense, like CS Lewis who did not believe Jesus was in any way “made up”.)

        While loving the notion they are independently thinking “non-conformists” rejecting a faceless totalitarian society of zombie sheep, Communism isn’t what the US Right are facing.

        They are facing people who are (possibly over-) emphasizing diversity and personal expression, and who think nothing displays intolerance for individualism more than *selective moral judgement based on a very narrow and paternalistic view of culture*.

        The populist right is not “non-conforming” by nature — it is desirous of extreme conformity, by everyone in society, to the culture prescribed by the “mythic identity”. Basically, the Right is doing exactly what it says it hates: interfering in the everyday lives of regular people.

        The clash comes, because Liberalism says "believe how you want, but you can't do just anything you want to the degree it affects others in society who believe differently". When Liberalism doesn't appear to work, for whatever reason (I put it down to extreme emphasis in the US on *my personal "rights" come first, every time, FyourFeelings*), then the Left say, "we will make you let people believe what they want, FyourFeelings", while the Right says, "if we are truly to believe what we want, then we will do whatever we feel that might entail however much it affects anyone else's contrary beliefs, FyourFeelings."

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          Cogitatio

          "I don’t know that Communism WAS “heavily aimed at cultural dominance.”"

          It certainly did away with the old, but it also implemented a whole new culture, focused on Marxist principles as well as a hodgepodge of other things. There was no "blank slate" as you say, and the constant drumbeat of propoganda illustrates this aptly. I spend years in Germany and had a fair amount of interaction with the Soviet military back in the late 80's early 90s, and I can firmly tell you that they had an imposed culture -- and a set of institutions to enforce it. The Chinese have learned better in that they were, until recently, less heavy handed about it. They have implemented a limited form of capitalism, which has allowed massive economic growth. They were even allowing a fair amount of freedom--again, until recently. They are now clamping back down.

          "Fascism (and its extreme branch Naziism) developed a strong sense of belonging based on their myth of identity"

          I do not disagree with this, although it is worth remembering that Communism in the Soviet Union had its own myth of identity. Talk with an old Soviet officer and they can spout it chapter and verse. :-)

          "The populist right in the US has an extremely well-defined myth of identity and how society should look culturally if it were to be “correct”."

          I have to disagree with you somewhat here. The populist right has a vague idea of what society should look like. They have a much more defined view of what it should NOT look like, and that tends to be what the extreme (and populist) left wants society to look like.

          "They are facing people who are (possibly over-) emphasizing diversity and personal expression, and who think nothing displays intolerance for individualism more than *selective moral judgement based on a very narrow and paternalistic view of culture*."

          I submit that the Left's view of the world is not individualistic. It is vastly conformist, and requires that all not only tolerate, but accept and concur with that conformity. "Diversity" is not the goal, rather it is selective diversity. The Left does not want diversity qua diversity, instead they want conformity of belief, and that belief includes the idea that certain types of diversity are ranked before nearly everything else in priority.

          "The populist right is not “non-conforming” by nature"
          No disagreement here. They appear non-conformist, particularly to themselves, because they are juxtaposed against the dominant Left-wing culture. Rather like the Left's adherents that all speak the same, dress the same, think the same, etc., and congratulate themselves on how they are non-conformists because they are opposed to the "man" (to use an older term).

          "Basically, the Right is doing exactly what it says it hates: interfering in the everyday lives of regular people."

          There is a great deal of truth here. It appears that you really should choose your enemies wisely, as you will become like them.

          "The clash comes, because Liberalism says "believe how you want, but you can't do just anything you want to the degree it affects others in society who believe differently"."

          Hmm, much to unpack here. First, the modern Left is not liberal, and they do not adhere to "Liberalism." Not sure if that was the direction you were going, but wanted to clarify, as the modern Left is all about making other people believe and ACT differently -- and they will hound you, get you fired, picket your home, and harrass you endlessly IOT to threaten everyone into "behaving."

          "When Liberalism doesn't appear to work, for whatever reason (I put it down to extreme emphasis in the US on *my personal "rights" come first, every time, FyourFeelings*), then the Left say, "we will make you let people believe what they want, FyourFeelings", while the Right says, "if we are truly to believe what we want, then we will do whatever we feel that might entail however much it affects anyone else's contrary beliefs, FyourFeelings.""
          I am afraid I disagree. The Left is not saying, "I shall make you let others believe as they will." Rather it is saying, you will tolerate the beliefs of others, you will accept them, and you will speak the words that indicate you are a believer --or you will be silent and we shall get to you when we finish with those who speak out.
          The Right is having a counter reaction against this. They have, regrettably, given up on the idea that each individual should be taken at face value and treated as an individual --if they ever believed this as all. The current Right I see as a pushback, Unfortunately, it is not a rational, reasoned pushback, but an extreme and radical version. The Right has become a warped version of the Left, to my mind, and the Left was already warped. Nothing good is coming from this, as the two sides push one another to ever greater extremes.

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        Kizedek

        Interesting. And thoughtful, which I appreciate.

        As far as "where the left has been for a long time", and "being better at it", etc:

        I tend to think that BOTH the US Left and the US Right are relatively "new to this".

        I think there is great earnestness in anyone trying to work out how a complexly diverse society lives and functions equably alongside each other. It's difficult. That's natural. Progressivism, Reform, "Building back better", "Making us great again", all come with a large degree of earnestness.

        The US is still just settling these things out. The major upheavals of the Civil Rights era only occurred in the 70s, and everyone (both Left and Right) are feeling like we are going, or have to go, through it all again. Or maybe it wasn't entirely resolved before.

        The US is still not, other than in scary headlines or the halls of certain campuses, where the rest of the modern democratic world is in terms of letting people of diverse beliefs live alongside people of quite different beliefs. And these other nations are not 1984 come to life (except perhaps Russia, which is no longer democratic, and is where the US Right thinks it wants to go). The US simply has some way to go on all fronts.

        Where the liberal nations of the modern social democratic world are is not the nightmare the US Right makes it out to be. That perception is part of their rhetorical schtick that "others" people (as I've mentioned, we have more religious liberty in Netherlands in many ways than in the US; and as David French pointed out a lot, the "evangelical right" in the US, far from being oppressed and persecuted, are the group with the greatest influence, power, wealth and voice, that the world has EVER known). Similarly, the US Right is not as "Hand Maiden" as the Left makes it out to be.

        Actually, I think that "wokism" and "retribution" is how both sides speak respectively of *freedom*. The Right constantly bemoans and decries the "tyranny of the majority", while it is busy establishing and exercising a "tyranny of the minority" ...because, well, it's in the minority.

        If anything, all this polarization and aangst and gnashing of teeth in the US is the natural and direct result of a society that constantly emphasises and demands *MY personal freedom first, FyourFeelings* and minimises the societal aspects of its society. It's juvenile, and everyone ought to be ashamed (*especially "Christians"*).

        Conflict and problems inevitably arises when people always put *myself* first, whoever they are. And let me tell you, that thought is more biblically sound than the bizarre notion that Satan and God align themselves politically on the US Left and US Right and square off over a raft of political stances (some sound and some completely not sound but merely partisan). Christians are supposed to be the ballast that steadies the "ship of state". They are not to make everyone rush to one side or the other in order to attempt to right a tilting that is inevitable everywhere other than dry dock.

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About Jonah Goldberg

Editor in chief & co-founder of The Dispatch and Remnant podcast host. A scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, an L.A. Times columnist, CNN commentator, and author of three NYT bestsellers. Goldberg worked at National Review for two decades.
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