Populism, Trump, and the Death of Democracy

By Harold W. Anderson, Ph.D., M.A., M.Div.

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During the past elections I was speaking to a fellow who said that Kamala Harris was a “communist.”  I must admit that I was a little short with the guy because it was clear that he had no idea what communism is.  I asked him if he had ever read Karl Marx or more modern Marxists such as Theodor Adorno, Louis Althusser, or Alain Badious.  Although he tried to suggest that he had, a cursory examination of his knowledge of these scholars indicated he had no idea what he was talking about.   And that is the problem.  People who have little understanding of communism attach the label “communist” to those they oppose.  It is a convenient way, they think, of convincing others that those they oppose are somehow “Unamerican.”

I know this tactic well.  As a past member of a conservative, evangelical denomination, I have been called a communist many times because I didn’t accept their theology or their interpretation of Scripture.  I’m not a communist.  I don’t think that government should own the means of production, nor do I think that somehow government should be able to do away with the Bourgeoisie peacefully or with violence, as Marx held.  I also don’t think that reality can be reduced to dialectical materialism.  However, I do think a good case could be made for the demise of a pure form of communism in today’s world if indeed, it ever existed.  But I do embrace certain socialist-leaning notions such as public education, free state college tuition, universal health care, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, etc., anything that makes our society a more gracious, equal and just place to live, but even then, I am not a communist.

Accepting these ideas, however, does not mean that I eschew capitalism—I owned my own mental health practice for Pete’s sake—nor do I think government should be involved in every part of our lives.  I admit that the line between these things is often difficult to draw—government oversight is very much a part of health care, and it should be—and all people as well as businesses should pay their fair share of taxes regardless of their income levels.  The line between government, business and the public is a moveable one and it moves as differing political parties push it around based upon their ideology.  What is the responsibility of those with much to those who have little?  What is the role of government in assuring that the public is free of corporate greed and safe to live as they see fit?  These are difficult questions, and as different political parties have come to power in this country, we have lived pretty much in the middle, not between communism and capitalism, but in the middle of a capitalist society sliding back and forth between free market capitalism and capitalism beholding to a central form of government that tries to assure everyone has a place at the table.

Sure, fringe elements have always tried to play a part in this, but they have been relegated to the periphery of society.  Some of the fringe elements hold that fascism is a better form of government, and others hold that communism, or perhaps more accurately, Marxism is more adequate, but none of these perspectives have, at least on the face of it, held dominance in our country.  If we were to diagram this dynamic, it might look like this:

Several things should be noted concerning this diagram.  First, the term “communism” is not on it.  It does not depict anything about communism.  Second, it depicts a democracy whose economic system is a capitalistic one.  It is unlikely that a communist country will be capitalistic.  If a communist system were to embrace capitalism, state ownership of the means of production would have to be greatly modified and indeed, that is why some argue that communism is becoming obsolete since that is precisely what communist juggernauts China and Russia have done.  Finally, in the system depicted above, social programs work capitalistically.  That is, regardless of what the social program might be, business is not about the function of government nor does government work like a business.  The task of free and fair elections in this country has been to move the slide back and forth along the line, but in a liberal democracy such as the United States, a person’s patriotism should not be questioned because of where they stand on the line.  We may not like it, but that is the messiness and greatness of democracy.  In a democracy, agreement is not necessary; what is necessary is a commitment to agree to disagree.

In a strong democracy, all of this is governed by the Constitution and the rule of law.  The Constitution defines the basic structure and law of the United States government, and an independent judicial system is charged with the responsibility of assuring laws and regulations are in keeping with the Constitution.  The rulings of the Court define the law to which all who abide in this country, regardless of privilege, are obliged to live. No one is above the law.  There are ways to dispute these rulings, but If the Constitution is ignored or disobeyed, the stability of democracy will weaken and eventually crumble.  If democracy, commerce, community and government are to survive, the rule of law must reign supremely.

Things, however, seem to be changing. In the United States today, a malicious form of authoritarian populism (hereafter “populism”) seems to be taking front stage, an ideology that exchanges the pluralism of contemporary democracy for what is called “xeno-racism.”  Xeno-racism was made popular by Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the work of whom helped shape the infamous anti-Semitism of the Third Reich during Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror.  Chamberlain, Krzysztof Przybyszewski (2021) notes, argued that being Jewish had less to do with one’s origin than with one’s associations.  Or, as Chamberlain put it, the company we keep determines the “state of one’s soul.”   Quoting Chamberlain, Przybyszewski notes that Chamberlain believed “it is enough to have frequent contact with Jews, read the Jewish press, enjoy Jewish literature, art, music or philosophy, to become a Jew” (p.163).  The relationships we keep and the values we hold, Chamberlain argued, define us as a person, a relational matrix that transcends origins.  Xeno-racism, in other words, cuts the Gordian knot between racism and race and in doing so, sets the stage for populism’s claim that racism no longer exists, that we live in a postracist society, which like the label “communist,” is a code word for the systemic racism it seeks to cover up.   

The marriage of xeno-racism to populism results in a radical rejection of pluralism, which is the lifeblood of our democracy today.  Walter Bugaric (2019) defines populists as those who believe their group and their group alone “represent the people.”  Because they reject pluralism, they refuse to tolerate political, social, racial, or religious difference.  Anyone opposing their ideology is not opposition; they are traitors.  With this division comes the bifurcation of our country’s population into two, antagonistic and monolithic groups that is the leading characteristic of populism in the United States today.

Let’s look at the populism of Trump and MAGA more closely.  C.R. Kelly, a Communication Studies professor at the University of Nebraska, notes that while denying systemic racism, Trump tends to evoke a stunning reversal when he claims that he and MAGA are the victims of racism because of political correctness, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives (DEI), and cancel culture.  As Trump tells it, all of this creates a reality in which Trump and MAGA are systemically victimized, which jeopardizes their ability to succeed as they did in the “good old days.”  Trump’s promise is to return MAGA to these good old days where they no longer have to labor under the oppression of DEI, political correctness and cancel culture.  Justifying the anger all this causes for MAGA, Trump tells them that only he can provide a solution to their suffering.  Interestingly, in this promise, Trump articulates a reverse discrimination narrative betraying his embrace of postracist ideology.[i] In his mind, marginalized populations are no longer being discriminated against and have an unfair advantage because of DEI that impacts university admissions and the workforce. 

The result, Trump and MAGA believe, is that white people are disadvantaged.  Today, it is white people, Trump tells MAGA, whose rights are being robbed from them by the discriminating and unfair practices of DEI, cancel culture, or more widely cast, wokism.  The “other” targeted by Trump and MAGA, then, are people of color surely, but more broadly, the enemy of Trump is anyone or any institution that embraces the politically correct values of “wokism.” [ii]  To use Chamberlein’s terminology, two “souls” have been defined: MAGA and what I will call the “Woke Other.”  It is the Woke Other that defines the enemy of Trump and MAGA, and putting aside the Constitution and rule of law, being loyal to MAGA means supporting whatever means necessary to nullify the Woke Other.

If this sounds as if Trump and MAGA is at war with the Woke Other, that’s because they are.  If one were to listen to Trump’s rhetoric about evoking wartime initiatives such as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, [iii] one would be inclined to think the United States was under attack.  While training the public’s attention on immigrants, I believe Trump thinks the United States is under attack and the enemy is more than immigrants; it is what I am calling the Woke Other.  Anyone, any institution, any business or any organization whose embrace of wokism creates opposition to Trump, is Trump’s enemy, and their rights should be suspended so that Trump can establish a MAGA-only world.  When that world—his version of the good old days—is implemented, democracy can be restored, but it will be democracy without heart for it is a monolithic democracy that thinks only one way; diversity of thought or belief has no place in this government.  In such a government, modern liberal democracy is dead.

In a recent study (Wintemute, et al., 2024), respondents were asked “How important do you think it is for the United States to remain a democracy?”   93% of all respondents said that it was very or extremely important, yet among MAGA Republicans, 45% said it was more important to have a strong leader than have a democracy, and 62% said that because the United States was so far off track that citizens may have to resort to violence to fix it.  74% of MAGA Republicans believed that United States democracy is so bad, civil war is likely within the next three years.  When one considers that MAGA Republicans represent 34% of all Republicans and 15%, or 36.5 million of all adults in the United States, these statistics are alarming.  This is especially true since MAGA controls not only the White House, but Congress as well, and is threatening the autonomy of the Courts.

This means that just as MAGA separates the population into two distinct and opposing groups, so the democracy they embrace is different from the modern liberal democracy embraced by non-MAGA voters.  The democracy embraced by MAGA is a democracy without heart.  Their advocacy of violence is rooted in a mean-spirited racism intolerant of difference.  As stated above, the democracy that MAGA envisions is one where all participants fundamentally agree and who are equally committed to a strong leader, Donald Trump.  There is little room for ideological difference, and less room for diversity.  Again, the monolithic nature of their group means that ostensibly, it is not the color of their skin or place of origin that determines their place in MAGA.  It is loyalty to Donald Trump although as I have demonstrated, the xeno-racism they embrace is but a poor cover for the systemic racism that has infected American society from its beginning.  The MAGA democracy assures, however, a prominent place for white people and limits the involvement of persons of color, the LGBQT community, women, or anyone else they deem to be a part of the Woke Other.

Given this, the choice is a clear one.  Do you want a MAGA democracy, or are you willing to wake up and support a modern, liberal form of democracy that despite its weakness, is an experiment in diversity and a commitment to a more inclusive future?  If we have another election, hopefully the choice is yours.

Works consulted:

Ben-Ghiat, R. (2020). Strongmen: Mussolini to the present. WW Norton & Company.

Blayney, J.A.. Lostutter, T.W., & Kilmer, J.R. (2023). The battle for ideological hegemony: Woke culture, social justice warriors, and right-wing populism. Journal of Legal Studies, Humanities and Political Sciences, 10(1), 19-34.

Bugaric, B. (2019). The two faces of populism: Between authoritarian and democratic populism. German law journal, 20(3), 390-400.

DeHanas, D. N. (2024). The spirit of populism: sacred, charismatic, redemptive, and apocalyptic dimensions. Democratization, 31(4), 831-851.

Grimshaw, M.(2019). The legacy of Weimar?: Trump as Schmittean sovereign & Taubesean katechon. Special Issue: The problem of Trump: responses from radical theology & philosophy. Continental Throught & Theory: A Journal of Intellectual Freedom.  3(1), pp. 132-152.

Kelly, C.R. (2020). Donald J. Trump and the rhetoric of ressentiment. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 106(1), 2-24.

Ono, K.A. (2020). Postracism: A theory of the “Post”- as political strategy.  Journal of communication Inquiry, 34(3), 227-233.

Przybyszewski, K. (2021). Populism as the Cause of Legitimising Racism in Western Societies. Dialogue and Universalism, (1), 157-175.

Velasco, J. C. (2020). You are cancelled: Virtual collective consciousness and the emergence of cancel culture as ideological purging. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 12(5), 1-7.

Weir, D. (2023). Displacement and Replacement: The Political History of David Duke, Patrick Buchanan, and Racial Resentment. Journal of Hate Studies, 18(1), 1–15. Wintemute, G. J., Robinson, S. L., Tomsich, E. A., & Tancredi, D. J. (2024). MAGA Republicans’ views of American democracy and society and support for political violence in the United States: Findings from a nationwide population-representative survey. PLoS one, 19(1), 1-26.

 

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Notes:

[i] K.A. Ono (2020), Distinguished Professor in Communication at the University of Utah, compares postracism to the treacherous fantasy of manifest destiny when he states: “Much like ‘manifest destiny’ as a fantasy—a trick of the imagination—that the West was unoccupied and thus was ‘there for the taking’ (despite the fact that indigenous peoples lived there long before Europeans ever imagined the West as a place, let alone occupied it), postracism, too, is a fantasy that racism no longer exists. Postracism disavows history, overlaying it with an upbeat discourse about how things were never really that bad, are not so bad now, and are only getting better” (227).  However, for the advocates of postracism, the racism that no longer exists is racism directed at marginalized populations.  Because of DEI initiatives, political correctness, etc., marginalized populations have inherited the time-honored belief that if one works hard, they will succeed and postracial advocates point to Barak Obama to prove their point (Ono, 2020).  By claiming that racism has been overcome, they not only erase the notion of systemic racism towards marginalized populations but erase the history of racism thereby creating a convenient tool for politicians.  By critically analyzing the rhetoric of postracists, Ono shows that not only does racism towards marginalized populations continue to exist, he draws on the work of sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, and notes that while “Whites continue to deny there is racism,” racism continues to exist.  Again, Ono states: “Whether flying under the flag of ‘color-blindness,’ ‘multiculturalism,’ or ‘racial tolerance,’ contemporary rhetorical discourse (whether intentional or otherwise) masks or cloaks the reality of racism today, diminishing or downplaying its significance, even as quotidian instances of racism…remain part of the daily experiences of people of color” (p. 230). Postracism, then, is a cloak for the systemic racism that the culture of whiteness has instilled deeply into the cultural imagination of White people in this country.

[ii] Wintemute, GJ., et al. (2023) did an interesting study comparing MAGA Republicans, Strong Republicans, Other Republicans, and Non-Republicans.  The sample size was 7,255 people representing differing demographic groups across the United States.  Of this group, 96.6% of all Republicans believed the country was headed in the wrong direction, with 75% of all Republicans and 90% of MAGA Republicans believing there is a serious threat to democracy in the United States with the majority of all Republicans thinking that it was important or very important that the U.S. remain a democracy.  69% of MAGA Republicans think that our democracy, however, only serves the interests of the wealthy and powerful and 55% believe that having a strong leader for the U.S. is important.

     Interestingly, the study also showed that if Republican voters didn’t think leaders were protecting people from threats, 53% of MAGA voters and 54% of the other Republican voters thought they should do it themselves “even if it required taking violent actions,”  with 62% of MAGA Republicans and only 29% of other Republican voters believing that things have gotten so bad, resorting to violence may be necessary, and 74% of MAGA voters thinking that civil war will break out in the “next few years” as opposed to 46% of other Republican voters.

     Justification of violence in non-political situations, however, was something few MAGA Republicans opposed.  As a means of self-defense, 90% of MAGA Republicans said it was always justified, and an additional 9% saying it was sometimes justified.  Among other Republican groups, 85% said violence was always justified in self-defense, while an additional 14% said it is sometimes justified.  The percentages were about the same when responding to “prevent someone from injuring or killing themselves.”  To prevent harm or damage to property, the percentages were markedly lower, with 54% of MAGA Republicans saying it was always justified and 38% saying it was somewhat justified, with other Republican groups registering at 41% and 51% respectively.  When asked about using violence, to win an argument, in response to an insult, or to get respects, MAGA Republicans said it was strongly justified in 86% of the time, and sometimes justified 11% of the time, with other Republican groups believing it was sometimes justified 89% of the time.  Interestingly, the studied also found that 72% of MAGA Republicans believed that violence is never justified to “return Donald Trump to the presidency,” and 50% of MAGA Republicans saying it was never justified to “stop an election from being stolen.” Another interesting finding was that very few Republicans including MAGA Republicans would be willing to get “personally” involved in violence to accomplish a political objective.

     Finally, MAGA Republicans (76%) and Republicans (57%) overwhelmingly believe that Black people have an advantage over White people because of DEI initiatives.  When asked if “straight white men hold far too much power in America,” 75% of MAGA Republics did not agree, and for other Republican groups, 70% disagreed. When ask if “discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against Blacks and other minorities,” 72% of MAGA Republics strongly agreed, and 27% somewhat agreed while in other Republican groups only 37% strongly agreed and 37% somewhat agreed.  To the statement “In American, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants,” 51% of MAGA Republicans strongly agreed with 32% agreeing somewhat, while in other Republican groups, only 29% strongly agreed, and 39% agreeing somewhat. 

     The authors conclude that while the study indicated that MAGA Republicans support violence, they were guardedly optimistic because while supporting violence, even MAGA Republicans were unwilling to get involved in violent acts personally. 

[iii] It has been well-documented by the Press as well as in Court cases that some immigrants reported to be living in the U.S. illegally by Trump, they were in fact here legally.  Indeed, in some instances, they were students who were married to U.S. citizens and had children born in the U.S.  Because Trump has routinely ignored Court orders, it seems obvious that he has “set aside” the Constitution in favor of his own agenda.  If this is true, then what is to stop him from suspending habeas corpus for whomever he deems his enemy?  Indeed, Trump has commented that habeas corpus is a “waste of time” that only costs the U.S. billions of dollars.