The second Trump administration is officially a reality. It is deeply disheartening that a plurality of voters would overlook the chaos and corruption of Donald Trump’s first term, his 34 felony convictions, his liability for sexual assault and, most troubling for our democracy, his violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election to return him to the office for which he is manifestly unfit.
Throughout American history, a percentage of our fellow citizens have been dissatisfied with, or even hostile toward, our ideals and institutions. Sometimes, this discontent simmers on the margins. At other times, like now, it swells into a more significant force.
Even so, this faction rarely represents more than about a third of the population, and the number of true believers is smaller. Yet it’s cold comfort to say that Trump failed to win a majority of the 2024 vote (49.8%) or that only 31.6% of eligible voters actively supported him. Because here we are.
Here we are because some portion of that 31.6% voted for Trump because of what they know about him, not despite it. And because another 34% of eligible voters couldn’t bother to vote at all.
And so, after everything we already know about Donald Trump, here we are.
Since the New Deal ushered in a decadeslong series of economic, social and cultural reforms, reactionary discontent in our politics has often been expressed by a particular brand of conservatism that historian Richard Hofstadter, in a 1954 essay, called “pseudo-conservative.” Unlike classical conservativism, which values stability and the measured stewardship of institutions, pseudo-conservatism is rooted in anxiety about declining social status. It thrives on grievance and nostalgia for an idealized past.
Pseudo-conservatives see themselves as morally true conservatives. They echo conservative language, drape themselves in the flag, invoke the Constitution and call themselves patriots. Yet these self-proclaimed “real Americans” paradoxically embrace authoritarian tendencies and a willingness to dismantle democratic norms. They reject diversity and pluralism, offer few coherent policy solutions (in fact, political incoherence is a defining trait) and channel their energy into retribution. A more accurate term for them might be “revanchists,” a fancy political term derived from the French word “revanche,” meaning “revenge.”
The lineage from pseudo-conservatives to movement conservatives to the tea party and MAGA is unmistakable. To dismiss them as cranks or extremists, however much they might actually be, is to underestimate their enduring influence and diminish the need to effectively counter them. When their interests happen to align with the general disinterest of apolitical swing voters — whose own vague, perpetual disgruntlement with whoever is in power at any given moment has repeatedly shifted congressional control between Republicans and Democrats since 1980 — the nation’s trajectory can change dramatically.
With most newly inaugurated presidents, we have no way of knowing whether they will rise to greatness, falter into failure or settle into mediocrity, trapped by the gravitational pull of William Taft and so many others. With Trump, there is no such uncertainty. We know exactly what we’re getting.
Spite. Disruption. Political nihilism.
Brace yourselves.
