Trumpism is a far-right populist and nationalistic political ideology and political movement in the United States which originated with Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Trump distinguished himself among the other Republican presidential candidates by suggesting simple answers to complex political, economic, and social problems, appealing to anti-elitist sentiment and nativism among populist, working-class European-Americans, and through nationalistic policies towards the economy, immigration, multiculturalism, and international relations (deemed "America First" by Trump). According to the sociologist Jeff Goodwin, Trumpism was marked by social conservatism (anti-abortion and anti-LGBT views), neoliberal capitalism (tax cuts for the rich and economic deregulation), economic nationalism (high tariffs and staunch protectionism), nativism (xenophobic rhetoric against immigrants, especially generally nonwhite groups such as Hispanics and Muslims), and nationalism (including the refusal to reject far-right and alt-right groups such as the Proud Boys). While most scholars agreed that Trump was not a neo-Nazi, many scholars argued that his ideology, and certainly his rhetoric, were inspired by classical fascism, and he drew the support of various neo-fascist and white supremacist organizations such as the Proud Boys, the Ku Klux Klan, anti-government militias such as the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, and online activist communities such as the Groypers and QAnoners. Trumpism reached its peak at the 2016 presidential election, during which Trump took advantage of rising right-wing populism among working-class whites to win over the formerly-Democratic "Rust Belt" of the Midwest, but the 2021 United States coup d'etat attempt led to Trump leaving office in disgrace and the Republican Party facing factional battles between its national-populist "Trumpist" faction and its "establishment" conservative wing. Ultimately, the Trumpist faction came out on top, as Republican leaders Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and Lindsey Graham returned to being staunch Trump supporters after briefly wavering in the face of the coup attempt, and the vast majority of the GOP opposed Trump’s impeachment and supported the expulsion of the anti-Trump Republican Liz Cheney from her leadership position in the House due to her refusal to support the “Big Lie” conspiracy theory.
History
Trumpism inherited the traditions of numerous historical American political movements of the right-wing, including the Jacksonian Democrats, a "whites-only" political movement which defied political correctness and constitutional law and married grassroots anti-elitism with isolationism and American power and sovereignty, as well as with the paleoconservative movement of the early 20th century, which recoiled against the looser morality of the cosmopolitan cities and America's changing racial complexion amid the Roaring Twenties. In addition, other scholars compared Trumpism to classical fascism for its emphasis on national rebirth (exemplified by Trump's "Make America Great Again" motto) and "shared domestic dreads" such as the media, "elites", "globalists", and "illegal immigrants".
Trumpism was also marked by a unilateral foreign policy, Trump's disdain for traditional allies such as NATO, and sympathy for autocratic governments such as those of Russia and North Korea. Trump's economic policy was staunchly nationalistic and anti-globalistic, promising new jobs and more domestic investment, and imposing punitive tariffs on China and the European Union in failed attempts to revive America's declining manufacturing industry. Political and economic themes such as deindustrialization, offshoring, racial tensions, and political correctness and social themes such as xenophobia, national security scares, religious bigotry, white nationalism, economic insecurity, ultranationalism, the use of scapegoats, and the use of falsehoods and "alternative facts" energized the Trumpist movement within the Republican Party, whose grassroots support forced sitting Republican lawmakers to adopt increasingly far-right policies and rhetoric in order to retain the support of their constituents. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trumpism also adopted anti-Asian sentiment and anti-mask sentiment to its platform, with Trump and his supporters blaming China and Chinese people for spreading the virus overseas, and opposing the wearing of facial masks or the practice of social distancing in order to ebb the flow of the virus. The Trumpist movement took part in several anti-lockdown protests across the United States in 2020, culminating in a foiled conspiracy by the Wolverine Watchmen militia group to arrest and execute Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan for "treason", inspired by Trump's calls to "Liberate Michigan". Trump's poor handling of the COVID pandemic and the George Floyd protests lost him the support of millions of middle-class Americans and moderate whites, many of whom either voted for the Democrat Joe Biden or third-party and write-in candidates at the 2020 presidential election. After Biden was proclaimed the victor, Trump and his most ardent supporters began a "Stop the Steal" movement to overturn the election results, making false allegations about voter fraud such as conspiracy theories about discarded Republican ballots, deceased people voting, or a sudden influx of Democratic mail-in votes turning the tide in several battleground states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, and Michigan. Trump's anti-democratic rhetoric inspired thousands of his supporters to take part in his "Save America Rally" in Washington DC on 5-6 January 2021, and he ordered his supporters (including hundreds of Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and other alt-right and white nationalist supporters) to march on the US Capitol and force the US Congress to invalidate the results of the election. The ensuing 2021 United States coup d'etat attempt resulted in the deaths of 4 insurrectionists and one Capitol Police officer as the mob stormed the Capitol and raised Trump and Confederate flags on the Capitol grounds, and the coup was ultimately defeated when riot police and the National Guard were sent in to expel the insurrectionists from the building. The coup attempt led to a significant faction of Republican lawmakers turning against the outgoing president, and Trump was impeached by the US House of Representatives on 13 January 2021, with ten Republicans crossing party lines to vote to impeach Trump. Biden was peacefully inaugurated on 20 January, and he called for unity in his inaugural address; meanwhile, social media giants blocked the accounts of Trump and several conspiracy theory promoters in order to prevent him from inciting violence again. In spite of Trump's brief flirtation with forming a "Patriot Party" because of Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham's apparent (and brief) disavowal of Trump following the coup, Trumpism remained the dominant ideology of the Republican Party even after the Capitol coup attempt, as the party's state affiliates censured politicians who supported Trump's second impeachment (for inciting the Capitol) and continued to promote his social and economic policies. Graham argued that the Republican Party could not grow without Trump at its helm, and he and other Republican leaders backed the anti-Trumpist Liz Cheney’s expulsion from her leadership positions after she called out the Trumpist “Big Lie” conspiracy theory regarding allegations of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.