20th January 2026
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“…neither rhyme nor reason.”
– Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare
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What, if anything, is Trumpism?
There is not really any rhyme: there is no consistency or predictability in what he does. His actions in situation [A] will tell you little or nothing about what he may do in situation [B].
There are, at a general level, certain themes: he is indifferent to norms, he is cunning, he likes leverage, he will renege on deals, he has a sense for ratings, he will often back down. But these are tactics and improvisations: they say little or nothing about which subjects he will engage with next.
And nor is there is much reason: little or nothing he does makes sense, at least for the reasons he gives – or for the reasons his partisan supporters come up with to justify his actions and inactions.
It would be fair to say there is neither rhyme nor reason.
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From time to time, some opponents come up with a grand theory.
“Watch the money!” and “his billionaire pals!” for example – but often Trump and the super-wealthy would financially benefit more from other courses of action. His erratic antics with tariffs make no sense from the perspective of capitalistic self interest.
“Distraction from the Epstein Files!” is now falling flat while Trump and his circle are confident that they can simply ignore explicit legislation. Those documents are not easily going to be released against the will of Trump, whatever the huffing and puffing.
Perhaps his desire to keep out of courts and prison may be his primal motivating factor, but when he was out of office between his presidencies he was deftly able to avoid any incarceration even when he was found criminally liable.
The only thing really which he wants is that most basic of all political objects: power.
But other than that fundamental political desire, there is no underlying theory, still less an ideology.
As Anne Applebaum wrote yesterday (broken up into smaller paragraphs):
For the past year, American allies around the world have tried very hard to find a theory that explains Trump’s behavior.
Isolationism, neo-imperialism, and patrimonialism are all words that have been thrown around.
But in the end, the president himself defeats all attempts to describe a “Trump doctrine.”
He is locked into a world of his own, determined to “win” every encounter, whether in an imaginary competition for the Nobel Peace Prize or a protest from the mother of small children objecting to his masked, armed paramilitary in Minneapolis.
These contests matter more to him than any long-term strategy.
And of course, the need to appear victorious matters much more than Americans’ prosperity and well-being.
We maybe need to look elsewhere than political theory to understand what is going on here: perhaps psychology or anthropology, perhaps proverbs and fables, perhaps cautionary fairy tales.
We maybe need to look at the various ways our species have dealt with understanding those situations where a ruler is mad and bad.
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“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
– Hamlet, William Shakespeare
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Law and constitutionalism has little chance in the face of this ongoing irrationalism.
Pointing to the articles of the constitution of the United States, or of the charter of the United Nations, is nothing more other than quaint.
One may as well hold up a blank piece of paper and announce that this will stop him.
There is no formal solution to this problem: no text, codified or otherwise.
This will only stop if – if – those individuals who have any residual power step in and impose their wills against his.
And that still seems unlikely.
Those around him appear to be in a trance that has affected the whole of his “court” – a spell as deadly as any devised by any fairy tale witch upon any group of courtiers.
A spell which seems to be absolutely unbreakable.
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And now Trump has destroyed – or at least seems to have destroyed – Atlanticism and the NATO alliance.
Perhaps both will recover: that this is only some severe but not permanent jolt.
But when overnight Trump posts things like the following:
Or sends official diplomatic letters such as:
…we are not in situation from which we can speedily recover.
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“We are indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell.
Making an enemy of our own future.”
– Withnail and I
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One day, perhaps, all this will be in the past.
One day we may know how this story ends.
Indeed, what happens next will be deemed by a certain type of historian as somehow inevitable – even though nobody at this moment can predict it with any certainty.
But as it stands: we are currently in a situation where there is neither rhyme nor reason – where precedents and norms and laws and rules and theories offer no assistance.
We are trapped in a story where there is nothing to tell us how this story ends.
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“I have supped full with horrors.”
– Macbeth, William Shakespeare.
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In terms of precedents, it’s back to Athens vs. Melos: “the Athenians offer no moral justification for their invasion, but instead bluntly tell the Melians that Athens needs Melos for its own ends and that the only thing Melians stand to gain in submitting without a fight was self-preservation.”
https://philosophybreak.com/articles/thucydides-melian-dialogue-can-international-politics-be-fair/
Trump is seemingly confirming the “great man” theory of history over the broader forces theories.
For great, of course, read mad.
And I am sure that without willing enablers he would not be able to do this, but the destruction of an 80 year world order would not be possible without his personal attributes.
One correction: the ‘official diplomatic letter’ you refer to was in fact just a text and someone has turned it into an apparent official letter.
Ok – it was still an official communication (ie, in his capacity etc). But fair correction.
What is left? A hope that the mid terms will be the turning point. Not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning….
the worry is that we have been confident about elections before.
This presumes, of course, that the mid-terms take place and that they are both free and fair.
We have already seen ample evidence of jerrymandering – and “counter-jerrymandering” to try and use redistricting to sway the results [Texas, California, etc.].
There are claims from the Executive that the disorderly conduct in Minneapolis and Minnesota generally is being caused by paid and organised agitators [though to the best of my knowledge, that is without substantive evidence]. This could easily be used as a predicate for deployment of federal resources around polling stations on Election Day this year, with those personnel deployed being given orders to arrest anyone who appears [insert classification/description of your choice] and simply hold them until after polls close. The federal agencies of Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the broader DHS have been given a cash infusion of billions of dollars and have surged recruitment, with observers noting that the advertisements appear to be specifically designed to appeal to a particular demographic [disaffected young men with aggressive tendencies] and that training has been slashed from months to weeks.
I’ve been reading up on US law regarding elections and it is generally recognised that the States themselves have the authority to administer elections… but it seems likely that given a predicate of “paid agitators” or “election interference”, the Federal government may send the massively expanded ICE/DHS/CBP manpower in to states to “check identities” of voters.
But it is possible that simply administering extremely assertive “election day security” is not the goal. If the events we have seen reported from Minneapolis in particular and Minnesota more generally are a guide, it seems at least possible that the President might choose to interpret *any* resistance or engagement with those federal appointees to be somehow rebellious in nature.
We know that the President often telegraphs his intent and we have witnessed the President musing in public whether or not he should invoke the Insurrection Act. It is worth noting, when he did so, that he augmented his comments with what I’ll describe in quotes as “facts and figures” [on the basis that I believe he may have made some factual errors in his assertions], but note instead the fact that he started talking about the number of times the Act has been invoked as indicative of something being actively explored.
We have seen – as reported by the Indepdent just this Monday – that Stephen Miller – White House Deputy Chief of Staff – issued a post to social media in response to the murder of Renee Good that, “Only federal officers are upholding the law” and, “Local and state police have been ordered to stand down and surrender” – which, in case you’re wondering is “not a thing” thanks to the 10th Amendment, which reserves police power to the states – and Supreme Court precedent prohibits the federal government from “comandeering” state officials to enforce federal policies.
Similarly, in interviews given – for example to Reuters this week – President Trump said that Republicans have been so successful that “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”
Given all the above – and I hope this does not come across as argumentative – can we really say with confidence that there will actually be mid-term elections this year?
All that Trump is doing makes coherent sense if you accept that Trump is being controlled by Putin.
For a narcissist like Trump, the ultimate horror to be avoided is public shame and maybe Putin has images of Trump disporting during a Miss World contest in Moscow.
There are things Trump is doing which cannot be traced to Putin or in which Putin has no interest.
The reality that most people operate within and use to guide decisions does not exist for Mr Trump.
Instead, he is actively creating his own version of reality as an continuous, ongoing process.
That process relies heavily on his emotions, which are highly volatile.
His points of reference are only what will make him feel better in the moment or add to his internal calculations that support what he considers a projection of strength.
The projection of strength, ultimately deriving from weakness as it does, is susceptible to the influence of others. Indeed, the perception of whatever others surround him at a given moment is fundamental to its nature.
There appears to be no coherent strategy because there is no coherent strategy save the quelling of insecurity of a desperately miserable man egged on by others with their own agendas and faults.
Looking for logic is a fool’s errand. Ask instead, “what vulnerability does this action protect him from, not only within an overall context but especially within the immediate context that the action takes place?” That is where reason, such as it is, may be found. Shame does not inhabit here, for the cost of acknowledgement would be too much. Welcome to the world of the absurd.
Thank you, DAG, for delineating the current problem.
The most important thing for us, the little and powerless people, the horrified spectators, to do at present is to affirm the value of rationality, starting from the privacy of our own crania and our own law-and-history bookshelves. It is a bit like the struggle here in 1940s-through-1991 occupied Estonia against the silliness of the CP-USSR, when it was to logic, legality, and the historical record that people had to cling – even in the teeth of the empty “General Party Line” in mass media, even in the teeth of the contemptible “red subjects” in Estonian university curricula. When sanity at last came to public space, at the end of the Gorbachev years, it came rapidly and decisively. I recall one of Dad’s prewar friends, the exile author Arvo Mägi, writing astutely in his 1979 historical-survey book, “Käesolev teos, olles jälginud tihti üllatuslikult muutuvat maailma ja eest rahva ajalugu, tahab muu hulgas olle ka manitsus liigse pessimismi vastu”: “The present work, having tracked the history of the world and the Estonian nation, with its frequent surprising transformations, seeks among other things to warn against excessive pessimism.”
This makes me wonder if we need to fight fire with fire.
But please do not mistake that as meaning we (by which I think I mean “the rest of the world who choose to work together”) should act with equal impunity or impulse, but a considered and thoughtful controlled burn to prevent the fire from escalating.
We are constantly watching the pyromaniac to try to understand his next target. We react and try to prevent or extinguish the fire.
Should we stop reacting and start acting? Should we invent a target? A lovely hay loft that is so very dry from a hot summer. “Oh gosh, please do not bring your matches here, to our lovely hay loft, in this remote field, surrounded by already burned fields and far from our crops.”
Do we need to create imaginary battles, things we can pretend we care about, to distract from the things we DO care about?
Can we send the navies of the world to capture the classic desert island with its single palm tree, making it very clear how important and strategic this goal is, how full of resources (coconuts?) it is, shouting that it is ours now, you cannot have it, “nyah nyah nyah nyah”.
In short, do we need to start petty squabbles just so that we can lose them?
I don’t know how we would do this. I don’t know if we can do this. I don’t know if we SHOULD do this.
My knowledge of great literature is somewhat lacking, but to butcher and paraphrase from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
When you have eliminated the sane, whatever remains, however insane, must be the answer.
There is good reason to believe that Trump is now being driven entirely by the November midterms – that he believes, absent some extraordinary intervening factors, Congress will be reconstituted and will derail him.
Congress, of course, can always derail a President’s ambitions, but in Trump’s case his astonishing threats to exercise raw power are entirely dependent on Congress in general, and the Supreme Court in particular not frustrating his ambitions in order to have teeth.
Trump himself also believes he will be impeached again if the midterms do not go his way:
“You gotta win the midterms ’cause, if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be – I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump told Republican lawmakers at a retreat in Washington. “I’ll get impeached.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-house-republicans-if-we-dont-win-midterms-i-will-get-impeached-2026-01-06/
Additionally, the Supreme Court may yet, despite its Republican majority, tell Trump that he cannot use tariffs as an instrument in the exercise of raw power – that his invocation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 does not permit the use of tariff measures.
Trump’s approval ratings are poor. If his polling does not improve significantly, he will lose the midterms. And Trump is as much a prisoner of history as any other US President.
“….the odds that the Republicans will hold their slim House majority in 2026 are small. Another factor makes them smaller. When the sitting president is “underwater” – below 50% – in job approval polls, the likelihood of a bad midterm election result becomes a certainty. All the presidents since Harry S. Truman whose job approval was below 50% in the month before a midterm election lost seats in the House. All of them.”
https://theconversation.com/for-80-years-the-presidents-party-has-almost-always-lost-house-seats-in-midterm-elections-a-pattern-that-makes-the-2026-congressional-outlook-clear-271605
So determinative as the midterms will be, we can posit that Trump, rationally, must be planning accordingly.
If he loses the midterms, his Presidency will become effectively – at least relatively – powerless. Therefore, if he is to lose, he has eight months in which to act unfettered. But he also has eight months to act in such a manner as to improve his polling and win the midterms.
It would seem likely that a Trump in November with American flags planted in the ice and snow of Greenland, is more likely to prevail in the midterms on a surge of nationalistic fervour.
There does not appear to be a more cautious, safer, saner strategy available to him that would make prevailing in the midterms more likely than continuing to act brazenly. Indeed, what other outrageous Trump power plays are we likely to see this year? The international order may yet face significant, if not existential, additional dangers this year.
A tune runs through my head from 1976. From 10cc’s album “How Dare You!”
Great analysis, thank you, and one which I share as I’ve often pointed out to friends and family that it’s the unbridled pursuit of naked power that seems to be his driving force, in search of “the win” at the expense of whomever, be it ally or foe…
But what I have not seen picked up on much yet in the media, and I think it bears worth mentioning, is that his enchantment with the theatrics is probably driving his erratic behaviour even more than usual. In this year, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he wants to enter the pantheon of transformative presidents (that, he is already) by increasing the land mass of the U.S., akin to Thomas Jefferson with the Louisiana Purchase (especially because of his infatuation with the Mercator projection). His infantile perspective on national greatness drives his simple-minded pursuit of a large land grab, since land and property are the measures of strength and power. He wants to make a big announcement: why else did he put another deadline for tariffs by the end of June? That’s only a few days away from the 4th of July (or for real pedants: the 2nd of July)…
How will it end? I suspect it will be — to continue your Shakespearean them — ‘a tale told by an idiot’. He will run out of time, in office and eventually his life (he’s 80 this year) and it still won’t make sense.
“Whenever peace – conceived as the avoidance of war – has been the primary objective of a power or a group of powers, the international system has been at the mercy of the most ruthless member of the international community. Whenever the international order has acknowledged that certain principles could not be compromised even for the sake of peace, stability based on equilibrium of force was at least conceivable. […]
Whenever there exists a power which considers the international order or the manner of legitimizing it oppressive, relations between it and other powers will be revolutionary. In such cases, it is not the adjustment of differences within a given system which will be at issue, but the system itself. Adjustments are possible, but they will be conceived as tactical manoeuvres to consolidate positions for the inevitable showdown, or as tools to undermine the morale of the antagonist. To be sure, the motivation of the revolutionary power may well be defensive; it may well be sincere in its protestations of feeling threatened. But the distinguishing feature of a revolutionary power is not that it feels threatened – such feeling is inherent in the nature of international relations based on sovereign states – but that nothing can reassure it. Only absolute security – the neutralization of the opponent – is considered a sufficient guarantee, and thus the desire of one power for absolute security means absolute insecurity for all the others.
Diplomacy, the art of restraining the exercise of power, cannot function in such an environment. It is a mistake to assume that diplomacy can always settle international disputes if there is “good faith” and “willingness to come to an agreement”. For in a revolutionary international order, each power will seem to its opponent to lack precisely these qualities. In the absence of an agreement on what constitutes a reasonable demand, diplomatic conferences are occupied with […] become elaborate stage plays which attempt to attach as yet uncommitted powers to one of the opposing systems.
For powers long accustomed to tranquility and without experience with disaster, this is a hard lesson to come by. Lulled by a period of stability which had seemed permanent, they find it nearly impossible to take at face value the assertion of the revolutionary power that it means to smash the existing framework. The defenders of the status quo therefore tend to begin by treating the revolutionary power as if its protestations were merely tactical; as if it really accepted the existing legitimacy but overstated its case for bargaining purposes; as if it were motivated by specific grievances to be assuaged by limited concessions. Those who warn against the danger in time are considered alarmists; those who counsel adaptation to circumstance are considered balanced and sane, for they have all the good “reasons” on their side: the arguments accepted as valid in the existing frame-work. “Appeasement”, where it is not a device to gain time, is the result of an inability to come to grips with a policy of unlimited objectives.
But it is the essence of a revolutionary power that it possesses the courage of its convictions, that it is willing, indeed eager, to push its principles to their ultimate conclusion. Whatever else a revolutionary power may achieve therefore, it tends to erode, if not the legitimacy of the international order, at least the restraint with which such an order operates. The characteristic of a stable order is its spontaneity; the essence of a revolutionary situation is its self-consciousness. Principles of obligation in a period of legitimacy are taken so much for granted that they are never talked about, and such periods there-fore appear to posterity as shallow and self-righteous. Principles in a revolutionary situation are so central that they are constantly talked about. The very sterility of the effort soon drains them of all meaning, and it is not unusual to find both sides invoking their version of the “true” nature of legitimacy in identical terms. And because in revolutionary situations the contending systems are less concerned with the adjustment of differences than with the subversion of loyalties, diplomacy is replaced either by war or by an armaments race.
From: Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Castlereagh, Metternich
and the Restoration of Peace, 1812-1822 (1957) pp. 1-3.
(A book about Napoleon, Hitler and, apparently, Trump.)
I came out by the same door I went in.
Two words come to mind. Backpfeingesicht and Trimalchio.
The dollar is down so is the Yuan, Wall Street and Shanghai not so amused. The US midterms start cooking in say 6 months time. Time now for the baby rattle and a bit of diversion, 6 months – not really time enough to get the high chair and toy tanks set up – with or without diplomat pudding.
It is also worrying that within Congress there are few signs of an emergent Macduff. Waiting for Big Mac cannot be our best hope.
It is patent to everyone that the Emperor has no clothes, but he doesn’t seem to care and he still does have a lot of guns and tanks and missiles.
So, all very well but what should the UK do, instead of sitting and wittering?
Stop buying US treasuries ( perhaps sensible anyway with the dollar in decline)?
Race as fast as possible to rejoin the EU?
Boycott the 250 anniversary celebrations?
Withdraw from the World Cup?
Withdraw from the Olympics?
I fear with Rodney ( full name Sir Keir Rodney Starmer) in charge, twittering will remain public policy.
I agree that when it comes to Trump’s behaviour, we have to come to terms with his vanity, and with his mercurial and lawless behaviour. But, we are not simply dealing with Trump, we are dealing also with a royal court, on which he still depends. Like any court, it has circles of proximity to the king, and degrees of influence, but it also is made up of people all with their own interests. They’re all doing the game theory, and at that point, it’s possible to think through some of the calculations they will be making. When to continue to back the king, whether or not to support a coup, who to support should they attempt a coup, etc.
It’s the stuff that Smith and de Mesquita cover so well in ‘The Dictator’s Handbook’ which, despite its clickbaity title, is really a condensation of years of careful academic study of political decision making, with a focus particularly on the way that royal courts function.
I think Mark Carney did as well as anyone possibly could in his Davos speech. Acknowledging reality but putting forward the sensible (and difficult) alternative. ‘Difficult’ because co-operation in the face of adversity hasn’t always been middling states modus operandi.
Perhaps the UK can still be the trans-Atlantic bridge – between Canada and the EU via Greenland …