Trumpism Isn't a Political Movement But a Psychological Phenomenon

For the last couple of years I've been banging my spoon on my high chair about how Trumpism isn't a political or ideological movement so much as a psychological phenomenon.This was once a controversial position on the right and the left. Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon devoted considerable resources to promoting Trumpist candidates who supposedly shared President Donald Trump's worldview and parroted his rhetoric, including anti-globalism, economic nationalism and crude insults of "establishment" politicians. Those schemes largely came to naught.The intellectual effort to craft or divine a coherent Trumpist ideology didn't fare much better. Just over a year ago, Julius Krein launched a new journal called American Affairs to "give the Trump movement some intellectual heft," as Politico put it. As I wrote at the time, American Affairs' dilemma was that by associating itself with Trump, it would be forced to either defend the incoherence of his behavior or break with him to defend its own consistency.Six months later, after the debacle of Trump's response to the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va., Krein recanted his support for the president.  Continue reading...