Convergence & Cataclysm: The Tectonic Plates of Trumpism
Clinging to politics is one way of avoiding the confrontation with the devouring logic of civilization.
John Zerzan
The only paradise is paradise lost.
Proust
In the big picture, the pandemic was probably the best thing that could have happened to Donald Trump. Had there been no Covid, he would have cruised to reelection, mainly due to the favorable conditions inherited from the Obama years. But then the wheels would have come off, as his plutocrat-friendly policies would have failed to deliver the goods for regular folks as the years of his second term wound out. Also, it would have been difficult to just blame the libs for everything for eight years, so the pendulum would have swung back to the Dems in 2024, just as it has been doing since Reagan (Reagan/Bush1 to Clinton, to Bush2, to Obama, then to Trump). After eight years, Trump’s clown-car approach to staffing and governing would have worn thin, and he likely would have just faded into the Mara Lago sunset, another link in the chain of plutocrat-enablers, leaders who never really improve the lives and livelihoods of regular people in any meaningful way.
But with the pandemic came salvation, via the purifying fires of persecution, martyrdom, resurrection, and eventual re-enthronement. The Covid interregnum allowed a serial bevy of important currents to gather momentum:
- The government’s forceful response to the pandemic allowed anti-government conspiracy theories to flourish
- Trump’s defeat in 2020 birthed the Stolen Election theme, which was added to the swelling stack of existing pseudo-theories, eventually becoming the master conspiracy around which the others are bundled
- This then led to the January 6th insurrection, which became another persecution/martyrdom rallying cry, replete with imprisoned ‘heroes’
- Covid also opened the door to all the various court-cases against Trump, which added more fuel to the persecuted savior motif
- The pandemic also led to inevitable economic stagnation and inflation, which could then be laid at the doorstep of Biden-Harris, paving the way for their ouster in the wave of anti-incumbent sentiment that saw Western leaders around the world tossed out of office
- The extra time with Trump out of office allowed for the gathering up, consolidation, and strategic confluence of all different strains of Trump support, systematized and crystallized in Project 2025 (despite Trump’s disavowing of Project 2025, he has picked at least four contributors to that document for his new administration — I’m sure that’s totally just a coincidence)
So in the long run, getting booted out because of his Covid response was actually a net positive for Trump, as it facilitated the creation of a much more powerful version of Trumpism to be rolled out in 2024, a confluence of various strains of conservatism. However, these tectonic plates of Trumpism that converged to deliver his comeback victory this year are not guaranteed to fit together in a coherent fashion. In fact, as we’ll see, it is almost certain that these various strains of Trumpism 2.0 won’t mesh well, and perhaps not at all, which will likely unleash a cataclysm inside the GOP, flipping the pendulum back in the Dems’ direction for the 2026 cycle and beyond. So ironically, the 2024 ‘mandate’ for Trump has a pulled-pin grenade lurking inside of it, one that could explode the Comeback Kid narrative for good. Trump’s new Golden Age will tarnish quickly.
So what are these main strands of neo-Trumpism, the tectonic plates that have come together for the recent electoral victory? The first strand is the core, original source of Trump support: white rural rage. As I have detailed in earlier posts on this blog, this is basically the age-old City Mouse/Country Mouse rivalry, only blown out to cosmic proportions. Coiled around this rural rage motif is a range of other culture war tropes: Reagan-inspired distrust of government, the demonization of liberals (started by the unholy trinity of Rush, Newt, and Rupert in the 90s, reaching its apotheosis in Trump’s “enemy within” rhetoric), anti-feminism, anti-abortion, anti-science, anti-expert, anti-elitism. For shorthand purposes, we can call this contingent the Culture Warriors. They are the true believers, the most cult-like devotees of Trump, willing to see liberal evildoers behind every shrub (regular readers will know that, in general, I don’t like to describe Trump supporters with cult language, because Trumpism has much more potential staying power than an ephemeral entity like a cult).
The second main tectonic plate of Trumpism is a relative newcomer to the party: the entrepreneur and tech-bro set, represented most starkly in Elon Musk, Trump’s new tagalong, billionaire little brother. Along with Vivek Ramaswamy and a bunch of creepy crypto-dudes, this is not a particularly complex bunch. They are basically unreconstructed Ayn Rand fans, seeing regular people as pampered parasites and the wealthy as heroic creators of wealth and greatness. In this view, government is jealous (of the mercurial entrepreneurs) and monstrously inefficient, coddling losers and stealing money from the successful and giving it to the undeserving.The deep purpose here is to strip mine public spending by privatizing as much of the federal welfare apparatus as possible. Corporations have drooled over the vast pools of money in Social Security, Medicare, and other social safety net programs for years, so it’s not surprising that Musk and other Rand acolytes have glommed onto Trump, as he represents their best chance ever to dip their beaks deep into the public feeder. Call them “Muskies.”
The final tectonic plate in Trump’s new coalition is even more recent: the vast numbers of voters who held their noses and voted for him for so-called practical reasons. This group put Trump over the top in 2024, and for the most part, they ignored his extreme and demonizing rhetoric, focusing instead on his perceived expertise in matters of economics and diplomacy. They saw his more unhinged rantings as just theatrical and inconsequential, designed to tweak the noses of libs and to get more press coverage. These voters could be described as Pragmatists, in self-perception even if not in reality. They don’t really have much interest in the projects of the first two groups. They’re just counting on Trump to get inflation, the border, and foreign entanglements under control. That’s it.
So these three tectonic plates of Trumpism will come together in his second term: the Culture Warriors, the Muskies, and the Pragmatists. The Culture Warriors are setting their sights on one set of priorities: owning the libs (a seemingly eternal calling), deporting of ‘illegals,’ getting jobs ‘back’ from overseas, and delivering vengeance against Trump’s enemies. The Muskies are targeting something different; they are out to hack away huge portions of the federal government, which will certainly fall disproportionately on the lower and middle classes. As Musk recently noted: “Everyone’s going to have to take a haircut… we can’t be a wastrel… we need to live honestly” ( I can guarantee you one dude who won’t take a haircut, and will instead reap billions in new profits: Musk himself). And finally, the nose-holding, ear-plugging Pragmatists are just hoping for cheaper gas, cheaper groceries, and fatter paychecks.
The first problem with these three sets of disparate goals is obvious: the actions of the first two camps will make the desires of the last group impossible to fulfill. Unless Trump drastically backs off his tariff and deportation schemes, prices will soar, especially for food and housing, the very things that people are struggling with so mightily right now. Mass deportation will also drastically lower sales tax revenue in many areas, and the demand destruction from the disappeared consumers (undocumented workers buy a lot of stuff) will tank many ancillary businesses. Also, vengeance doesn’t pay the bills. If the government wastes too much time, money, and energy going after the swelling hordes of Trump’s enemies, a lot of regular, non Culture Warriors will grow weary of dining on the thin gruel of self-righteous rage.
But the real damage comes with the dismantling of the government by the Muskies. This contingent, as nauseatingly displayed in the Musk quote above, is basically saying: “Yah, I know we have the biggest economy in history, with record profits for corporations, and you’re working your ass off for mediocre results. But you know what we need? More capitalism, more power for millionaires and billionaires, and haircuts for the coddled parasites.” There is a very bizarre disconnect between how JD Vance, on the campaign trail, was constantly talking about how Dems don’t understand regular people’s pain and economic suffering; and then after the election, Musk waltzes in with pure Atlas Shrugged bullshit, calling those same suffering folks dishonest wastrels. Make no mistake: if Musk and Ramaswamy manage to chop $2 trillion out of the federal budget, citizens of red states will bear the brunt of those cuts, as those areas receive proportionately more aid in the first place. I don’t think the self-styled Pragmatists realized that they were voting for more hardship. Maybe this is why Vance is nowhere to be found lately.
This brings us to a huge overall difference between conservatism and liberalism: how does each side understand the relationship between capitalism and big government? Conservatives generally see capitalism as great, the bee’s knees. Big government, however, prevents capitalism from becoming even greater, by enacting onerous regulations and by rewarding the unworthy at the expense of the successful. If we can just get rid of government’s inefficient meddling and its coddling of losers, then the icy discipline of the market will make all things right. This market forces argument, basically unchanged since the 18th century, partly accounts for the heavily masculine, patriarchal nature of Trumpism. Conservatives see the market, like the wider international scene, as a cruel, merciless place. We need to eliminate all softness and weakness from our political and economic leadership, so that we can be dominant in these hard, cold places.
Liberalism, believe it or not, also lionizes capitalism (that’s why we had Clinton and Biden as candidates, and not Bernie). But for liberals, big government is needed precisely to temper the cruelty of the marketplace, to limit its excesses and the damage it can do to regular people. Big government is also the place where existing inequalities can be attacked by providing mirror-image advantages in opportunities for the historically-marginalized.
For conservatives, the blind working out of capitalism should be allowed to settle us into our “natural” differences in skill and worth, creating a just hierarchy of rank and privilege. Equality, per se, is just not a concern, as this is not how things work in real life. It’s usually unclear just how miserable life should be for the naturally untalented losers, but it doesn’t really matter in the conservative worldview. Other things (tradition, faith, original intent, dividends) are more important, and most conservatives have already gone to Galt’s Gulch in their minds, leaving the parasites behind. Like Milton’s missing paycheck in Office Space, the fate of capitalism’s losers will “just work itself out naturally.” In reality, Musk and his ilk just want all non-winners to disappear, preferably literally, but at least vocally.
If the policies of the Culture Warriors and the Muskie brigade dominate Trump’s second term, and the goals of Project 2025 become the working script for the US government, then all the “Pragmatists” who voted for Trump are in for a rude awakening. They will see that they have signed up for a radical program of social engineering, one that has zero correspondence to reality, and zero compassion for the perceived enemies of Trump and the perceived losers of capitalism. Support for such a cruel and dismal future will not last long, and the great Trump mandate of 2024 will fade away like the value of vanity NFTs.
Originally published at http://entropolitanblog.com on November 23, 2024.
