Astral Codex Ten

Trumpism

4 min read

Trumpism

Article

Trumpism is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between January 19, 2023 and August 04, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “Trump: A Setback For Trumpism”; “use some phrase equivalent to “compassionate Trumpism””; “even if you’re sympathetic to Trumpism”. It most often appears alongside Germany, Italy, Obamacare.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 3
  • Issue count: 3
  • First seen: January 19, 2023
  • Last seen: August 04, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Which Political Victories Cause Backlash?
January 19, 2023 · Original source
Four years ago I wrote Trump: A Setback For Trumpism, pointing out that when Trump became president, his beliefs became much less popular. For example:
Inline links: Trump: A Setback For Trumpism
Grading My 2018 Predictions For 2023
February 20, 2023 · Original source
The crisis of the Republican Party will turn out to have been overblown. Trump’s policies have been so standard-Republican that there will be no problem integrating him into the standard Republican pantheon, plus or minus some concerns about his personality which will disappear once he personally leaves the stage. Some competent demagogue (maybe Ted Cruz or Mike Pence) will use some phrase equivalent to “compassionate Trumpism”, everyone will agree it is a good idea, and in practice it will be exactly the same as what Republicans have been doing forever. The party might move slightly to the right on immigration, but this will be made easy by a fall in corporate demand for underpriced Mexican farm labor, and might be trivial if there’s a border wall and they can declare mission accomplished. If the post-Trump standard-bearer has the slightest amount of personal continence, he should end up with a more-or-less united party who view Trump as a flawed but ultimately positive figure, like how they view GW Bush. Also, I predict we see a lot more of Ted Cruz than people are expecting.
Your Book Review: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
August 04, 2023 · Original source
(This, by the way, is why it is so dangerous for well-meaning people who support not-Hitlerian causes to use Hitlerian tactics. I’m going to give some specific examples, so apologize in advance for offending everyone’s political sensibilities. But even if you’re sympathetic to Trumpism, you should still be horrified by the January 6th incident, because it pushes our politics towards the use of physical terror. Likewise, if you’re on the left, you should be suspicious of the Black Lives Matter protests for the same reason. This doesn’t mean that Trump is Hitler or that BLM is the SA. But it does mean that, if you actually want to stop Hitler II, you have to be willing to call out your own side when they set precedents that a future Hitler could use to his advantage.)