The Supreme Court’s stunning decision invalidating Donald Trump’s tariffs isn’t just a major legal setback, though it certainly is that. The loss before the high court is also another sign that the pillars of Trump’s right-wing nationalist agenda are crumbling in a much broader and deeper sense—so much so that they’re posing a serious threat to the long-term durability of the ideology known as Trumpism.
If you had to name the two most essential pillars of Trumpian populist nationalism, you’d probably single out his sweeping tariffs and his campaign to deport all undocumented immigrants. The tariffs are supposed to unleash a domestic manufacturing renaissance, and the mass expulsions are designed to ethnically and culturally purify the nation. Together they make up much of the foundation of Trumpism’s fantasy version of nationalist renewal.
Both of those are now in crisis. The tariffs have been broadly invalidated. And in the aftermath of ICE’s invasion of Minneapolis, the deportations of noncriminal undocumented immigrants—while still proceeding—have been widely discredited in the minds of all but the molten MAGA core and face determined resistance all across American culture and society.
I hope this is true. I still worry that it’s all about the egg prices and if costs stabilize and the immigration push leaves the news cycle, people will go back to enjoying the show.
But for today, I’ll take this. I do think that people are seeing him more clearly than they have since January 6th and they don’t like what they see. With Trump promising to continue the tariffs by hook or by crook it’s hard to see how the economy materially improves. (If we have a war with Iran, we can be sure that oil prices are going to spike so it will almost certainly get worse.) The immigration policy is unlikely to change — there just too much money involved now what with the huge detention centers and the billions going to hire misfits to put on a mask and camo to terrify the public. (If you build it they will use it.) So there’s a good chance that people aren’t going to snap back. I hope not.