Trump is an abrasive loudmouth, but voters love him for that.
Or, Trump has won despite being an abrasive loudmouth because the status quo was so bad.
No one is really sure, but we kind of have to figure it out as we have a little over three more years of Trump, but then no more Trump (despite all the Trump 2028 signs). And it’s become clear that only Trump is Trump — we’ve seen lots of other people, left and right, try the abrasive loudmouth routine but can’t quite ride it to electoral success. So instead of Trump being a new type of politics, he was always going to be a bridge from the old status quo to… well, that’s the question.
Now, you all know, I’ve never been a big Trump fan. I didn’t vote in 2016 or 2020 because I really didn’t care for any of the options. After Democrats tried to get us to a new, terrible status quo with Biden, I did vote for Trump in 2024. And, he’s been about as good and bad as I expected. I mean, the tariffs stuff is worse (if Bernie Sanders were trying to control the economy through new taxes he thought of every day and imposed on us without Congress, I’d be calling for a military coup), but mostly Trump has been… Trump. And I’ve come to accept Trump is like a force of nature that there is not much point raging against. He has no clear ideology, but he at least likes America… which makes him better than a lot of other options.
But Trump really does have no real ideology other than his brashness, which just doesn’t work for anyone else. So when Trump is gone, Trumpism is most likely over as well. That’s a big void, so what will fill it?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Frank Talk to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.