Defying the Odds

by James W. Ceaser

  The biggest question mark of politics in the Trump presidency will be whether Trump will lead a constitutional revival or a further (perhaps final) descent into post-constitutionalism. On the one hand, Trump promised to roll back the most egregious of President Obama’s executive power grabs and to appoint constitutionalist judges with the imprimatur of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. His early cabinet appointments indicated an intention to restore some respect to federalism in education and environmental policy.

  On the other hand, it was far from clear that Trump had any deep knowledge of or interest in the Constitution beyond what was necessary to win over conservatives in the campaign. At a talk for House Republicans shortly after wrapping up the nomination, Trump reportedly promised to defend Article I of the Constitution, Article II, and all the way through Article XII.39 (There are only seven articles in the Constitution.) It was one thing to promise to roll back Obama’s edicts but quite another to promise not to do anything similar when his own priorities were stymied; this he did not do. To the contrary, his campaign was filled with outsized promises to exert personal leadership to get things done. At a speech in Bismarck, North Dakota, Trump told the crowd, “Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything . . . I’m the only one.”40 “I will give you everything . . . I’m the only one” is not a sentiment consistent with limited, constitutional government.

  None of this is to imply that the country was at a constitutional crossroads in November 2016 and that it was Trump’s victory alone that posed a danger to the Constitution. Arguably, it was much worse than that. If Trump offered one particular version of demagogic anti-constitutionalism, Hillary Clinton offered a different style of anti-constitutionalism, less passionate and more technocratic, but no less of a danger to constitutional norms. Clinton, after all, endorsed all of Obama’s overreach and proposed some of her own. She was the one who answered two debate questions about the Supreme Court with no substantive reference to the Constitution, who embraced in full the progressive dogma that the federal government can permissibly do anything the progressive imagination can concoct. Both exhibited authoritarian tendencies in their own ways: Trump proposed tightening libel laws to crack down on a critical media; Clinton endorsed forcing nuns to pay for abortifacients. One could be excused for fearing that the nation was headed for a post-constitutional future no matter who won. During the campaign, social commentator Joel Kotkin expressed the fear that “Rather than a choice, we face a contest between two different kinds of imperial pretenders.”41

  What had made possible such a choice? And what, specifically, had made Trump possible?

  As commentators frequently note, politics is downstream from culture. In many ways, American culture, including political culture, was fit for a Donald Trump in 2016 in a way it would not have been thirty or forty years earlier. Trump was a billionaire businessman, a consummate showman, and a rising political figure with (it turned out) strong political instincts. But he was also a celebrity cult figure, a reality TV star, a narcissist of the first order, a notorious playboy and strip-club owner, a serial fantasist, and a figure with no political experience and no obvious interest in or knowledge of key public policy issues. In an earlier era—but well within living memory—anyone with that profile would have been disqualified as a contender for the presidency long before the Iowa caucuses. Things had changed in American society.

  Donald Trump’s victory, as surprising as it was, could be seen as the logical conclusion of a number of political and social trends going back one, two, or even four decades. Trump was the most extreme version of the outsider type to actually advance to the presidency, but glorification of the outsider, and elevation of the prospects of the outsider, has been a feature of American politics since the McGovern-Fraser Commission and the candidacies of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter; Barack Obama himself had served less than three years in the U.S. Senate before beginning his campaign for president. A number of other outsider analogues had paved the way for Trump, including George Wallace, Pat Buchanan, and Ross Perot, who had each trumpeted, so to speak, many of the same themes.

  Barack Obama had also cleared the way for a celebrity cult of personality with the Greek temple that framed his nomination acceptance speech, while his supporters contributed cult-like songs and online encomiums to his glory. (Who can forget Obama Girl and the children’s choir singing his praises?42) Bill Clinton and his defenders had already normalized a postmodern conception of truth in politics—a conception embraced in 2016 by both Hillary and the Donald, who was estimated by Politico to tell an untruth once every three and a half minutes in speeches43—as well as the notion that a pattern of sexual misconduct did not establish unfitness for high office. Mass narcissism, which made its triumphant entry in the 1960s and 1970s with the New Left, the counterculture, and the “Me Decade,” was already a confirmed staple of American life that allowed a person to become wealthy by inventing a mechanism to make it easier to take pictures of oneself. The coarsening and vulgarization of society, under way for several decades with the full cooperation of crucial elements of popular culture, made it possible for Trump to talk and act in a certain coarse and vulgar way without politically fatal consequences. Did he really say anything about women that wasn’t repeated a dozen times a day on the run-of-the-mill hip-hop radio station? The contemporary decline of old-fashioned courtesy, seen in social settings on a daily basis, was simply carried by Trump into the political arena, perhaps altering the norms of campaigning forever. Indeed, Trump’s whole take-no-prisoners style of communication—140 characters or less, sometimes funny, often insulting or harsh, almost always self-promoting—had already become quite familiar to both social commentators and American teenagers, The old virtues of sobriety, of modesty, of mature self-control seemed to belong to a different country than the one Trump sought to lead. That fact said as much about the country as it did about him.

  The stage was set, but Trump still had to perform. Defying the odds more than any victorious candidate for president since Harry Truman, Donald J. Trump was, in many respects, a one of a kind in American politics. No one— not Jimmy Carter, not Andrew Jackson—had been more of an outsider. No one had disrupted his own party and the conventions of politics more. No one had, in a single election, laid low the reigning dynasties of both his own party (the Bushes) and the other party (the Clintons). But that was looking in the rearview mirror. Looking to the future, Trump may be only the first of a new type. The most powerful institutional trend (the triumph of unmediated democracy) combines with the most powerful social/political trend (a social free-for-all with collapsing rules) to establish conditions favorable not just to Trump but also to candidates like Trump. He has established a new model for political success: celebrity outsiderism plus personal wealth plus a demotic rhetoric of memorable everyday language. And if anything in politics is certain, it is that victory breeds imitation.

  NOTES

  1. Abigail Hauslohner and Mark Berman, “Anti-Trump demonstrators say nationwide protests are ‘just a taste of things to come,’ ” Washington Post, November 16, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/11/16/anti-trump-demonstrators-say-nationwide-protests-are-just-a-taste-of-things-to-come/.

  2. Pardes Seleh, “NC State Provides Students with Post-Election Comfort Food, Therapy,” The Daily Wire, November 11, 2016, http://www.dailywire.com/news/10707/nc-state-provides-grieving-students-post-election-pardes-seleh.

  3. “Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President,” https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19-4a78160a-023c-4ff0-9069-53cee2a095a8.

  4. Rachel Riley, “Colorado electors plan to challenge state law in bid to derail Donald Trump’s victory,” The Gazette, December 3, 2016, http://gazette.com/colorado-electors-plan-to-challenge-state-law-in-bid-to-derail-donald-trumps-victory/article/1591550.

  5. David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew M. Gro
ssman, “Let the Electoral College Do Its Duty,” Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2016, A13.

  6. Kyle Cheney, “Electors Under Seige,” Politico, December 17, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/electors-under-siege-232774.

  7. Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, “Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House,” Washington Post, December 9, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html.

  8. Ellen Nakashima and Adam Enthouse, “FBI and CIA give differing accounts to lawmakers on Russia’s motives in 2016 hacks,” Washington Post, December 10, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-and-cia-give-differing-accounts-to-lawmakers-on-russias-motives-in-2016-hacks/2016/12/10/c6dfadfa-bef0-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term.8d9686e5a3bf; Shane Harris, Devlin Barrett, and Julian E. Barnes, “Republican National Committee Security Foiled Russian Hackers,” Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-national-committee-security-foiled-russian-hackers-1481850043.

  9. Rachael Revesz, “Computer Scientrists Say they have strong evidence election was rigged against Clinton in three key states,” Independent, November 22, 2016, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/wisconsin-michigan-pennsylvania-election-hillary-clinton-hacked-manipulated-donald-trump-swing-a7433091.html; Carl Bialik and Rob Arthur, “Demographics, Not Hacking, Explain the Election Results,” FiveThirty-Eight, November 23, 2016, http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/demographics-not-hacking-explain-the-election-results/; Ryan F. Mandelbaum, “Closer Look Punches Holes in Swing-State Election Hacking Report,” Scientific American, November 23, 2016, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/closer-look-punches-holes-in-swing-state-election-hacking-report/; Shane Harris, “Sorry, Hillary Clinton Fans. There’s ‘Zero Evidence’ of Election Hacking,” The Daily Beast, November 23, 2016, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/23/sorry-hillary-there-s-zero-evidence-of-election-hacking.html.

  10. David Jackson, “Obama sanctions Russian officials over election hacking,” USA Today, December 29, 2016, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/29/barack-obama-russia-sanctions-vladimir-putin/95958472/.

  11. Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Maggie Haberman, “Donald Trump Concedes Russia’s Interference in Election,” New York Times, January 11, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/us/politics/trumps-press-conference-highlights-russia.html.

  12. Matthew DeFour, “Completed Wisconsin recount widens Donald Trump’s lead by 131 votes,” Wisconsin State Journal, December 13, 2016, http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/completed-wisconsin-recount-widens-donald-trump-s-lead-by-votes/article_3f61c6ac-5b18-5c27-bf38-e537146bbcdd.html.

  13. Steve Peoples and Andrew Welsh-Huggins, “John Kasich’s blow to Hamilton Electors: Ohio governor says he doesn’t want to be written in,” Salon, December 7, 2016, http://www.salon.com/2016/12/07/ohio-governor-tells-electors-not-to-vote-for-him-over-trump/.

  14. Kyle Cheney, “Lessig: 20 Trump electors could flip,” Politico, December 13, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/donald-trump-electors-lessig-232598.

  15. Art Swift, “Americans’ Support for Electoral College Rises Sharply,” Gallup, December 2, 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/198917/americans-support-electoral-college-rises-sharply.aspx.

  16. The clear case was 1888, when Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland despite trailing in the nationally aggregated popular vote. Contested cases include 1824, when only three-fourths of states chose their electors by popular vote; 1876, when there was massive fraud and a controversial electoral commission to assign contested electoral votes; and 1960, when Alabama’s split electoral vote complicates efforts to tabulate the national popular vote winner.

  17. Michael D. Shear and Maggie Haberman, “Trump claims, with no evidence, that ‘millions of people’ voted illegally,” Boston Globe, November 27, 2016, https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/11/27/donald-trump-says-without-illegal-votes-won-popular-vote-too/B6KClZcV7x2whk4Jjn6aZP/story.html.

  18. “Protests filed in Bladen and 11 other counties over alleged fraudulent absentee ballots,” http://www.wbtv.com/story/33718588/protests-filed-in-bladen-and-11-other-counties-over-alleged-fraudulent-absentee-ballots.

  19. Joel Kurth and Jonathan Oosting, “Records: Too many votes in 37% of Detroit’s precincts,” Detroit News, December 13, 2016, http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-votes-detroits-precincts/95363314/.

  20. Liz Kennedy, “Voter Suppression Laws Cost Americans Their Voices at the Polls,” Center for American Progress, November 11, 2016, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2016/11/11/292322/voter-suppression-laws-cost-americans-their-voices-at-the-polls/.

  21. “Early Voting,” Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Early_voting.

  22. John Fund, “Early Voting Has Made It Impossible to Replace Trump,” National Review, October 9, 2016, http://www.nationalreview.com/node/440896.

  23. Josh Stewart, “Following the Money Behind the nearly $500 million Democratic primary,” Sunlight Foundation, June 21, 2016, http://sunlightfoundation.com/2016/06/21/following-the-money-behind-the-nearly-500-million-2016-democratic-primary/.

  24. “Which Presidential Candidates Are Winning the Money Race,” New York Times, June 22, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/election-2016-campaign-money-race.html.

  25. “2016 Presidential Race,” Center for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org/pres16.

  26. Tina Sfondeles, “Democrats changing superdelegate rules; a Sanders win,” Chicago Sun Times, July 24, 2016, http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/democrats-changing-superdelegate-rules-a-sanders-win/.

  27. “Republican Exit Polls,” CNN, http://www.cnn.com/election/primaries/polls.

  28. “Faithless Electors,” FairVote, http://www.fairvote.org/faithless_electors.

  29. Andrew Restuccia, Nancy Cook, and Lorraine Woellert, “Trump’s Conservative Dream Team,” Politico, November 30, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-conservative-dream-team-231972.

  30. Jonathan Swan, “Trump adviser tells House Republicans: You’re no longer Reagan’s party,” The Hill, November 23, 2016, http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/307462-trump-adviser-tells-house-republicans-youre-no-longer-reagans-party.

  31. Dan McLaughlin, “How to Tell If the GOP Has Become Trump’s Party,” National Review, August 5, 2016, http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/438740/heres-how-you-can-tell-if-gop-has-become-trump-party.

  32. JulieGrace Brufke, “Pelosi Says Democratic Party Doesn’t Want New Direction,” The Daily Caller, December 4, 2016, http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/04/pelosi-says-democratic-party-doesnt-want-new-direction/.

  33. Tim Hains, “Pelosi Challenger Rep. Tim Ryan: Democrats ‘Are Not a National Party’ Anymore,” RealClearPolitics, November 231, 2016, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/21/pelosi_challenger_rep_tim_ryan_democrats_are_not_a_national_party_anymore.html.

  34. Matthew Nussbaum and Benjamin Oreskes, “More Republicans Viewing Putin Favorably,” Politico, December 16, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/goprussia-putin-support-232714.

  35. Chris Cizzilla, “Donald Trump was right. He got incredibly negative press coverage,” Washington Post, December 7, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/07/donald-trump-was-right-he-got-incredibly-negative-press-coverage/.

  36. Victor Davis Hanson, “The Trump Nail in the Media Coffin,” National Review, December 22, 2016, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443263/mainstream-media-trump-opposition-exposed-their-bias-irrelevance.

  37. See, for example, “Columbia Professor Says Democrats Need to Move Beyond Identity Politics,” National Public Radio, November 25, 2016, http://www.npr.org/2016/11/25/503316461/columbia-professor-says-democrats-need-to-move-beyond-identity-politics; Froma Har
rop, “Democrats must drop identity politics,” Denver Post, November 15, 2016, http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/15/democrats-must-drop-identity-politics/; Craig Mills, “Here’s Why Democrats Must Not Abandon Identity Politics,” The Daily Beast, December 20, 2016, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/21/here-s-why-democrats-must-not-abandon-identity-politics.html; Matthew Yglesias, “Democrats neither can nor should ditch ‘identity politics,’ ” Vox, November 23, 2016, http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/23/13685988/democrats-identity-politics.

  38. See Wendell Cox and Joel Kotkin, “The Future of Racial Politics,” RealClear-Politics, December 9, 2016, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/12/09/republicans_and_the_future_of_racial_politics_132523.html.

  39. Cristina Marcos, “Trump slips on Constitution particulars at House GOP meeting,” The Hill, July 7, 2016, http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/286879-trump-slips-on-fact-about-constitution-during-meeting.

  40. Eli Stokels, “Unapologetic, Trump promises to make America rich,” Politico, May 26, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/unapologetic-trump-promises-to-make-america-rich-223632.

  41. Joel Kotkin, “Battle of Imperial Pretenders—Trump vs. Clinton,” Los Angeles Daily News, May 15, 2016, http://www.dailynews.com/opinion/20160515/battle-of-imperial-pretenders-x2014-trump-vs-clinton-joel-kotkin.

  42. See “Crush on Obama,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?vwKsoXHYICqU; “Sing for Change Obama,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?vTW9b0xr06qA.

  43. Patrick Reis, “16 falsehoods spewed by Trump and Clinton,” Politico, November 6, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/2016-election-fact-checking-230814.