In Trump’s America, trolling is governance

Shadi Hamid

President Donald Trump has been in power only six weeks, but it might as well have been six years. Through his flurry of decrees and provocations, Trump has compressed time, bringing to mind Russian dictator Vladimir Lenin’s adage: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”

In his address to on Congress Tuesday night, Trump tried to capture and reflect the seemingly limitless energy of his first 44 days. He boasted of “swift and unrelenting action.” But as far as such speeches go, there was little in the way of legislative priorities or practical governance. There was no talk of unity. In this sense, it was a performance as radical as it was unusual. Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev has noted, I think correctly, that Trump 2.0 is not a normal administration. It’s a “revolutionary government.” Revolutions, it turns out, are dangerous. They’re also exhausting.

The near-entirety of Trump’s speech consisted of elaborate (and not-so-elaborate) attempts to troll Democrats. How did “owning the libs” become a substitute for anything resembling a legislative agenda? Presumably, it will get old eventually. But it also speaks to a genuine anger and frustration many Americans felt during the Biden era on cultural flash points such as gender identity and so-called wokeness, themes that Trump homed in on with relish. He spoke at length about the need to ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports, for instance.

Some of the cultural shifts promoted by liberals during “the great awokening” did indeed go too far. It shouldn’t be too controversial to say that at this point. Minorities in America tend to be more socially conservative than White liberals, and left-wing cultural commitments - particularly on gender identity - did, in fact, alienate Hispanic, Black, Asian and Arab voters (and voters more generally).

On transgender issues, Trump is mostly aligned with public opinion. According to a New York Times-Ipsos poll, 71 percent of Americans oppose prescribing hormone therapy or puberty-blocking drugs to anyone younger than age 18. Meanwhile, only 18 percent - including just 31 percent of Democrats - believe transgender female athletes should be allowed to participate in women’s sports.

But the question remains: What exactly was the point of relitigating such grievances? As the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser noted: “Not a lot of new ideas or plans in this speech. Mostly warmed over talking points, culture wars, and Biden bashing.” But I think this misunderstands the psychology of Donald Trump, who is indifferent to norms on what a speech to Congress should entail.

In this new Trumpian era, a Republican-led Congress is no longer a coequal branch of government. Instead, it has been refashioned as an enabler of Trump’s whims, resentments and obsessions. Trump’s objective is less to pass legislation - he seems to be relying primarily on executive orders, so far - and more to troll Democrats and assert his dominance over a feeble opposition party that doesn’t quite know how to play its role. This is what an “elected monarchy” looks like.

Of course, this approach is fundamentally at odds with the American constitutional system, which was designed precisely to prevent the concentration of power in a single individual. But Trump’s supporters - including his cheerleaders in Congress - don’t seem to mind. The appeal of strongman politics has always been its directness and simplicity: a leader who acts rather than deliberates, who decides rather than compromises. The messiness of democracy - with its endless negotiations and inevitable disappointments - pales in comparison with the emotional satisfaction of watching your champion vanquish his enemies or, at least in this case, humiliate them.

The policy priorities, as always with Trump, are secondary. The dominance is the point. In this sense, Trump’s address wasn’t just a trolling exercise; it was a statement of intent. This is what American politics will look like for the foreseeable future: a series of stunts and provocations masquerading as leadership.

Shadi Hamid is a Washington Post columnist. He is also a research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary and the author of several books, including "The Problem of Democracy" and "Islamic Exceptionalism."