Congratulations to new President-elect Donald Trump and his Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. They achieved a solid and historic victory crossing demographic barriers that had previously defined American politics. The black community, once confined to the Democratic Party, broke free and gave him over 20% of their vote. Latinos also joined his coalition. Even dark blue urban metropolitan communities voted for Trump in unprecedented numbers.
The crux of my past doubts about Trump centered on whether he could unify the country around nationalist principles. This breadth of his victory shows that he can do so. Indeed, he has the opportunity to cement a historic realignment from the globalist political culture that began in 1992 to a politics of nationalism. The coalition is still fragile and can be lost unless it becomes not only a “big tent” demographically, but ideologically as well.
The Old Culture
The 1992 election between George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot marked the end of the Cold War, a nationalist conflict fought with globalist methods. The real issue in that election was which of these two ideologies would define the post-war political debate. On the globalist side was Bush, who believed the US had a duty to lead the coalition that fought the First Gulf War to preserve an international system of stable nation-states. On the nationalist side were Clinton and Perot. Clinton campaigned on redirecting attention to domestic issues while Perot criticized the Gulf War and deficit spending.
Clinton’s victory seemed to usher in a nationalist era in American politics. However, his failure to incorporate the Perot nationalists into his coalition led to the 1994 midterm Republican sweep. In response, Clinton pivoted not only on domestic issues but also on foreign policy. He championed the concept of a new world order where the US would use its apparent unipolar primacy to spread, by economic and military force if necessary, democracy and free enterprise throughout the world. American politics would be fought on globalist rules, which included the corporate globalist goals of free trade and relaxed immigration. The 9/11 attacks and the Global War on Terror gave this crusade a nationalist patina, but the core goal of reimagining the world in our own image remained.
The New Political Culture
Trump’s victory renews a revolution against this previous culture he began in 2016. To succeed this time, he must govern as the head of a coalition of the two different nationalist ideologies discussed in my Globalism vs. Nationalism series (see the category under the Politics tab above); namely, cultural nationalism and progressive nationalism.
In that series, I originally described one of these sub-ideologies of nationalism as Ethnic Nationalism. In fact, it is more accurately termed cultural nationalism. It is the belief that the particular values and way of life of a nation are valuable and must be preserved. It can be based as much on religion, cultural traditions or even economics as it is on race or ethnicity. In particular, American culture has always prized individual autonomy and free enterprise entrepreneurship. Trump may be best characterized as such a cultural nationalist. It is why business leaders like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy became such avid supporters.
At the same time, President Trump has signaled the importance of progressive nationalism through the addition of Robert F Kennedy, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to his coalition. RFKJr brings his commitment to health, safety and the environment and Gabbard her commitment to a more restrained foreign policy. Both wings of nationalism share a hostility to lawfare and the unchecked administrative state.
However, there will be differences that need to be bridged. Obviously President Trump will have the final word, but there is another influencer in the coalition to be reckoned with – Vice President JD Vance. He has a history of articulate advocacy for both progressive and cultural nationalist causes. For example, he castigated the railroad industry after the East Palestine derailment and introduced new stringent railroad safety legislation in response. Unlike the other members of the coalition, Vance can’t be fired as Vice President. In the end, his chances of succeeding Trump after this one term will depend on preserving and expanding the nationalist vision.
There is no guarantee in politics and thus, no guarantee that the realignment towards a nationalist political culture will succeed. If Trump wants to engineer the same kind of generational change that presidents like Lincoln and FDR achieved, he will work to incorporate both the individualist and community ideals of nationalism. Otherwise, the globalists will win again.
