Donald Trump has declared war on gender ideology
I have already written that in the current conditions, Trump has two options for public positioning in the elections: a classic populist of 2016 or a radical Trumpist idealist. Why “radical”? This does not mean that Donald Trump is a bad politician or wants to destroy the world, everything is much simpler. Trump refuses to accept the rules of the US political system. He does not recognize the results of the 2020 elections; he opposes the course of his own party and demands that it worsen relations with the Democrats. And although a few months ago Trump could have returned to the classic image, today he is exacerbating the social conflict. His rejection of rules and institutions made itself felt again. He does not want competition of ideas and programs, or work with the problems of voters. At this stage, he wants a competition of ideologies, and this always leads to social conflicts.
During Biden's State of the Union address, Donald Trump released his “real message.” The media move is strong and shows that an alternative to Biden is emerging in the country. But if you look at this act outside the election campaign, Trump literally did not recognize one of the key and legal traditions of the United States when the president addresses Congress and the nation. But okay, let’s say Trump decided to learn from Latin American politicians, let’s analyze his election program. He just recently released a video about what he is going to the elections with. The video is called "President Trump's Plan to Protect Children from Left-Wing Gender Insanity." And this video opens Trump's election campaign. Trump promised on the first day of his new presidency to repeal Biden's acts, which allow children to make trans transitions through surgery and the use of special drugs. It would also prohibit people from transitioning into sports of the opposite sex when former men compete in women's sports. And there is nothing criminal in such an agenda; this is the opinion of an individual politician and his audience, party, voters. I suggest looking at this speech from a different perspective. To do this, I propose to compare the speech during Biden’s address to Congress and Trump’s first videos.
Biden: economy, tax cuts for the average American, corporate tax hikes for big companies, criticism of big pharma, maintaining government social spending (insurance, healthcare), American manufacturing, American chips, competition with China, aid to Ukraine, ban on automatic weapons, support for trans -persons, finding a solution to police violence without criticizing the police, ecology, the problem of illegal migration.
Trump: war on radical Democrats, abolition of gender ideology, ban on trans transitions among children and adolescents, criticism of big pharma, criticism of illegal immigration.
For the past two years, Trump has been denying the results of the 2020 election. He has also allowed himself to record a parallel State of the Union address in place of the sitting president, denying a long tradition and institutions. His campaign opening videos focus on ideological issues rather than classic kitchen table issues. It is possible that such a strategy will lead Trump to success in the primaries. Mobilization of the voter and emotional pumping leads to unification around the leader. The “friend or foe” system always works better than criticizing an opponent for economic mistakes. But the main question is, after a theoretical victory in the primaries, will Trump be able to offer undecided voters a non-ideological agenda in the general election?
Republicans failed to cope with this in the last midterm elections, and most of the Trumpist candidates lost in the most important campaigns for the party. Based on Trump’s latest actions, we can assume that distilled Trumpism awaits us.
Author: Pavel Dubravsky
