Writing for City Journal, Martin Gurri tries to grasp the unique power of Donald Trump, and why so many don’t “get” him. See some key thoughts.
Trump, after all, is a performer who carried a trivial reality TV show to popularity for more than a decade—he well knows how to communicate with the American public.
Trump loves the adoration of the crowd. But more than this, he loves the crowd itself, the proximity to ordinary people. He may be the only American politician who currently displays, and knows how to convey, a visceral affection for voters. He’s clearly energized in their presence, to the extent that he never wants the show to end. (snip) That’s his moment of transcendence.
Events just happen to skew to Trump’s advantage. His ostensibly fatal defeat in 2020 turned out to be the luckiest of breaks: the political steamroller that is Trump today can’t be explained without reference to the corruption and incapacity of the Biden years.
Trump has emerged as the avatar of the digital age, a Hegelian figure bearing the direction of history, the Weltgeist, upon his shoulders.
Of course the administrative “blob” is driven crazy in response, Trump heralds the death of their reign, and he revels in that role.