This article is part of a series about President Trump and how the elections of 2016 and 2024 have been “critical,” in the sense of transforming the Republican party and the political system. Although Trump’s ideology was iconoclastic from the beginning, his sway over his own party and federalism itself subsequently grew more complete. His non-consecutive presidential victories in 2016 and 2024, and even his defeat in 2020, mark various stages of this ascendancy, illuminating nuances of critical-elections theory. Unquestionably, Trump instigated and presided over a great change in American politics. Were his victorious elections in 2016 and 2024 both “critical” elections, however? Was one more “critical” than the other? And, if so, why?
Trump entered politics as a moderate independent. A business tycoon, he claimed to be one of the best people, but he was also a shyster with a barely hidden history of dubious financial dealings. He had mastered television as star of The Apprentice, a reality show that expanded his understanding and skill when it came to engaging with and leading ordinary people.
Trump entered presidential politics in July 2015, joining a crowded field of Republicans contending for the nomination as President Obama’s second term came to an end. Trump had never held public office. He had never formally identified as a Republican. Like Bernie Sanders, a lifelong independent who chose to affiliate as a Democrat in order to run for president in this race, Trump was an outsider and an interloper, hoping to take over the Republican party from inside.
Trump proved a tireless campaigner. He was very garrulous but also a very disciplined communicator. He had three major positions, which he expressed in a bold and controversial fashion. They were very easy to understand: he wanted to build a southern border wall and make Mexico pay for it; he wanted to stop China from taking advantage of the US, and he wanted to restore the prestige of being an American citizen. Trump repeatedly asserted in various ways 1) that the United States was a mediocre nation that he would restore; 2) that the US and its citizens were victims with major grievances in an unfair world. Trump positioned himself as the savior of a beaten nation, which needed him to “Make American Great Again.” These assertions were controversial, because, objectively, the US was and is wealthier and more powerful than other nations in the world.
Trump beat sixteen Republican rivals to secure his party’s nomination. During the primary, he spoke about his opponents and other types of people he disliked in an openly crude and ruthless way. He said demeaning things about women, people of color, and individuals with disabilities. He mocked people. He made fun of his opponents’ physical features, their spouses, their way of being. He groundlessly cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Obama’s electoral successes, questioning again and again whether the latter was truly a US citizen. In short, he attacked people verbally in a way that was un-Christian, intolerant, and unfair. Trump routinely violated the norms of civility that American leaders had relied on for centuries to maintain cordial working relationships in ideologically fraught times. Bad behavior became Trump’s stock in trade, because, he discovered, it kept him in the news.
Trump understood the electoral map. Scorning gatekeepers, he took his message to the people. He went out courting the votes of people the Democratic Party found it hard to reach. The people that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, called “deplorables,” began turning out for Trump’s rallies in large numbers. Trump created loyalty with voters by positioning himself as their champion against foreign powers and establishment elites, whether in the Democratic Party or his own.
As for Clinton, she, too, was a good campaigner; she was popular with women and minorities, with college-educated voters, and with the moderate Democratic base. She led a somewhat fractious party, however, with many Democrats having voted for the far more progressive Bernie Sanders in the primaries. Needing to retain these votes in the general election, Hillary was poorly positioned to court the vast pool of unaffiliated voters who might go for Trump instead. Then-president Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and vice-president Biden went out to stump for Clinton in critical “swing” states like Florida and Pennsylvania.
It was no use. Trump prevailed. Clinton won the popular vote, but he won the combination of states needed to secure a majority in the electoral college, capturing 304 votes, well above the 270 required. Trump captured Florida and Pennsylvania, as well as all the southern and Plains states, leading to the red and blue map Americans are familiar with today. Clinton’s support (in blue) was concentrated in the northeast and urban parts of the country, whereas Trump (in red) cleaned up in the vast regions that were rural or more sparsely populated. It was a stunning loss for Clinton, who tearfully conceded late the following day.
Even as his star ascended, Trump began making false assertions about his own election and the election process in general. Eking out a narrow victory over Clinton, he claimed he’d won in a huge landslide. This claim was false. He twisted facts to deny her greater popularity at the ballot box. In the debates, Trump had refused to commit to accepting the election’s results, though these were an expression of the people’s will.
In short, Trump embraced what came to be known as “election denial,” a chimerical doctrine antithetical to our entire system of representative democracy. He has since consistently spouted misinformation that slights the people’s sovereignty and citizens’ Constitutional power to choose who will occupy the presidency. This posture has gravely lessened the stability of Constitutional federalism.
In 2016, Trump proved the viability of his signature ideas; but, overall, he had to make do with divided government. The extent of his popularity within his own party in Congress remained unclear. In his first term, Trump had a conventional Cabinet and was initially intent on conforming outwardly to the norms of Constitutional government. He did not achieve his campaign objectives but always had reasons. Even the covid epidemic, which killed a million-plus Americans, he treated in an offhand way, resisting preventive measures and demeaning the nation’s leading doctors and scientists. This was an expression of the anti-intellectualism central to Trump’s philosophy.
In 2019, the House of Representatives impeached Trump on the grounds that he had improperly withheld military aid to Ukraine in an effort to coerce Ukrainian president Volodymir Zelenskyy to dig up dirt damaging to Trump’s chief domestic rival, Joseph Biden. The Senate acquitted Trump of the impeachment charges after a lengthy trial. The vote fell along party lines, with only one Republican, Mitt Romney, averring that President Trump had committed an abuse of power in seeking a quid pro quo in exchange for foreign aid.
Significant popular unrest roiled the end of Trump’s first term. The police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 spawned rioting, looting, property destruction, and open conflict with police in many communities. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, dating from George Zimmerman’s 2013 acquittal for the murder of Treyvon Martin, shifted into a higher gear, mobilizing massive protests across the country and internationally, involving millions of people. Many of these demonstrations were peaceful, but others were profoundly disruptive, paralyzing the normal life of cities. The protracted protests disrupted transit, destroyed businesses, and provided cover for unrelated lawlessness and crime. Despite the sympathy many Americans felt for the cause of racial justice, the disorder engendered was regrettable. It bred cynicism and aversion to the movement in some quarters.
Meanwhile, in Portland, Oregon, the protests that Floyd’s death triggered morphed into an entrenched semi-siege of the city center that lasted over a year and included vandalism, sporadic street battles with law enforcement, and the arrival of heavily armed federal forces to protect federal property. Many of the most committed protesters were young and white, with grievances that went beyond racial injustice or police brutality.
Trump took a hard line. Notably, he never acknowledged the righteous demand for true racial equality and justice that motivated the protests. He made no distinction between troublemakers and citizens exercising their Constitutional rights of assembly and free speech. In Portland, he focused on the role of the Antifa movement (a leftist, anti-fascist anti-Trump organization), decrying its use of violence and threatening to designate it as a domestic terrorist organization (while ignoring or even sanctioning the overtly militarized tactics of far-right political groups). Moreover, Trump seized on riots in major cities as an opportunity to criticize and wrangle with local officials, whom he viewed as despicable adversaries because they were, in the main, Democrats.
When the capital was the site of a major BLM demonstration, Trump allowed Secret Service to whisk him off to an underground bunker for his safety, betraying cowardice. Then, to demonstrate his readiness to use the armed forces against American citizens, he had Lafayette Square cleared of protesters, then paraded across it with a military detail that included the nation’s top military officer, the Joint Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley. Having crossed the square, Trump posed in front of St John’s Episcopal Church with a Bible, apparently signifying that his status as president enjoyed divine sanction of some kind. These were forays into an authoritarianism that Trump would continue to rely on in coming months and years.
The Republican Party underwent a sea change during Trump’s first administration, as he sidelined, ostracized, and repelled many prominent figures; made problematic appointments; and endorsed unknowns who were controversial and/or under-qualified. Some political stars set or were eclipsed; others rose. And some, meteorically, did both! Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Rex Tillerson, H. R. McMaster, Jeff Flake, Mike Pence, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie: Trump impacted the careers and images of these, and many other, leading lights. In addition, the never-Trump movement that began in 2015 accelerated and gained traction, with figures like Christie Todd Whitman and George Conway encouraging fellow Republicans to weaken Trump through attrition. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kept Republicans united behind Trump on key votes, including on impeachment and Supreme Court nominees. So even as Republican opposition increased, Trump’s control over the party also grew.
Of all Trump’s idiosyncratic characteristics, his reliance on lying, misinformation, and other authoritarian practices are most difficult to trace: they’re the most difficult to follow back to their source, to account for, explain. Were these his own invention? Did he read the classics of authoritarianism for inspiration? Did others coach him, providing him with a strategy for beating citizens and political rivals into submission? Or was it instinct? Many observers claimed early on that Trump was a puppet of the Russian government, that he owed his solvency to Russian patronage, and that a weird partiality to Russia was a trait that a number of his early advisors, particularly Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, shared. Regardless of the details, however, we can say that, as president, Trump largely disregarded the model of conduct established by his predecessors in the White House, instead hewing to a “strongman” model anathema to Constitutional federalism. His conception of his own singular importance as a world-historical figure was a particularly dangerous feature of his mindset, one hostile to the very continuance of a self-governing polity.
Trump’s 2016 presidential victory exemplified the dynamic power of personality and ideas to redefine American politics. In 2016, however, Trump was just one figure among many striving for the presidential nomination in the Republican Party. Even after Trump won nomination and became president, he was just one of many powerful figures in government, and there was a real question (as there is with every president) as to what kind of executive he would be. Where would he lead his party, and what success would he have in implementing his signature policies?
Trump fought ferociously to redefine presidential power, dominate his fellow Republicans, and hold onto political power by all available means. He hewed to these objectives even after losing the 2020 presidential election and leaving office in disgrace following the 2021 Capitol insurrection, ultimately running again and prevailing in the election of 2024. Throughout this span of years, he faced strenuous opposition from various quarters, but this only intensified his jealous convictions, which, as others accepted them or simply became inured to them, became everyday features of American politics and thought.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan M. Barsy, Ph.D.
Continue reading: Peculiar Aspects of the 2020 Presidential Campaign
