Trump's Brand Was Strength. It's Gone.
More Americans now call him weak than strong. The strongman era is over.
Most of what Donald Trump does and says is pure demented idiocy born of narcissism, a historically incurious mind, and a media diet rich in conspiracy theories and hagiography.
But for all of Trump’s stupidity, he does have one core political insight that has fueled his rise to power: strength is the currency of American politics.
Voters want strong leaders who can protect them from threats, domestic and foreign, and stand up to what they increasingly see as a corrupt and broken political system.
As Bill Clinton famously said:
When people feel uncertain, they’d rather have somebody who’s strong and wrong than somebody who’s weak and right.
Trump embodies strong and wrong to so many voters. It’s an image he cultivates. I think Trump truly wants to be a dictator. He is genuinely envious of dictators like Xi, Putin, and Erdogan. But Trump also acts like a strongman because it communicates strength to voters. And because it baits Democrats into attacking him as a dangerous strongman, which also communicates strength to voters.
Trump loves to call his opponents weak. “Low energy Jeb.” “Sleepy Joe.” “Lil Marco.” He even called the Pope “weak on crime.”
Trump rode his strongman image to two terms in the White House using the classic authoritarian playbook. He is often described as a master brand marketer, and Trump’s political brand was strength.
He began his second term astride the global stage. More popular than he had ever been. Reams of political capital.
Well, that’s all gone now.
Trump is no longer seen as strong and decisive, and that has big implications for American politics.
This is Trump’s emperor-has-no-clothes moment. And it’s the end of the Trump era as we have known it.
