No Wonder You Are Confused
Donald Trump, while visiting Turnberry golf course in south Ayrshire, Scotland, gave the assembled a new précis:
President Donald Trump’s Precis:
“Politics is pretty simple… Whoever does these things: Low taxes, keep us safe, keep us out of wars, no crime, stop the crime, and in your case, a big immigration component. The one that’s toughest and most competent on immigration is going to win the election.”
How odd that in 2025, world politics has reached this stage.
- No one really defends irregular migration, at least not on principled “no human is illegal” grounds.
- Immigration is still happening at scale but is only justified by expediency while overt celebrations of diversity rapidly go extinct.
- There is a well-established liberal narrative of Woke excess from 2020-24. When people now look back at lockdown they wince, and wonder why we couldn’t have been a bit more like Sweden.
What Is He Talking About?
Most would agree that reform is needed in the state machinery of Western democracies. “Most” works, unless you are a senator from New Jersey, reports NRO:
Senator Cory Booker is currently speaking, and he would like you to know this. He has been talking on the floor of the Senate for the last 18 hours straight, in what is not an attempt at a filibuster per se, just a really long speech. I do not know why he is talking. You do not know why he is talking. He does not know why he is talking. The media are indifferent as to why he is talking.
Why is Cory going on about this time? Oh right. Cory’s verbal incontinence is directly related to Cory being upset over President Donald Trump’s reign.
What’s the disagreement? Why are we still meant to be living through a struggle between populism and the establishment, asks Travis Aaroe in Spectator, “when the substance of it has largely been conceded?”
Simple Dissonance?
Leaders loudly commit themselves to Trump-style reforms only to balk at the means. One perennial feature of the last ten years has been moderate Democrats opposing the idea of an open border but denouncing any methods by which it might be policed.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, for example, accuses Britain’s civil service of being “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline.” Sir Starmer, however, is unwilling to change any of their processes or trim their numbers even slightly.
Denmark’s rulers talk tough on illegal immigration but are still horrorized by simple practicalities like family separation. (Former immigration minister) Inger Støjberg – in an extraordinary step – was deprived of her seat in parliament and jailed over the issue.
Why Is Trumpism Wrong?
Local objections and wrangling over means may yet weigh the MAGA agenda down, Lilliputian style, grants Mr. Aaroe, before admitting that he is “perplexed over the collapse of any unified theory” as to why Trumpism is not right.
Most online criticisms of the 47th president only allege that he is failing on his own terms: that he is not non-interventionist enough; that deportations are supposedly down compared to the Biden and Obama years; that he is not spilling the beans fast enough on Epstein.
Even on the latter point elite opinion is converging on the Trump view: that they know something was fishy about the affair but are unwilling to handle the detonation of the Anglo-American establishment that a full disclosure would mean.
Yes, In My Backyard
Trump is the only leader willing to act on the conclusions that most people have now reached.
- That administrative reform might mean firing people.
- That border control might mean some upsetting footage of arrests.
- That ‘YIMBY’ism to make building things such as data centers easier might mean trimming the powers of judges.
Would it be too much of an exaggeration to call Trump a “Reform president”? Mr. Aaore notes how Trump has changed none of his views since the 1980s.
On the other hand, there is Marco Rubio, the lost dauphin of the GOP, who changed them all.
Demolishing Bridges
The Tea Party, explains Mr. Aaroe, used to give the GOP Establishment headaches, “but there was a recognizable line of descent from Goldwater, Reagan, and William F. Buckley.”
Trump was the first modern party leader for whom this pantheon meant nothing.
With MAGA, does the link to the past finally break?
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