If you want to understand the Trump presidency, you need to understand Trump’s personality and psychological makeup.
However, if you want to understand Trump supporters, you need to understand not Trump’s personality, but rather his administration and its public policies: because while Trump supporters may not like or admire the man personally, they do like and admire his public policies.
Conversely, Trump may not think or care much about public policy. However, he cares intensely about what people, allies and enemies alike, think about him; and this, in turn, drives his actions as president. Abortion is a telling example.
The 47th annual March for Life took place Friday on the National Mall. Trump was the first president to attend the March for Life; and as the Washington Examiner explains in detail, he is indisputably the most pro-life president in American history.
Critics complain that Trump is not really pro-life because of things he said and did before running for president, and because unlike, say, Ronald Reagan, he hasn’t seriously grappled with “ideas about inherent human dignity,” as Jonathan Last puts it.
But that’s ultimately irrelevant. We cannot discern what is in Trump’s heart, mind and soul. All we can judge and evaluate are his public policies; and, when it comes to abortion at least, those public policies are indisputably and consistently pro-life.
The interesting question is: why? I think the answer is obvious and it tells us a lot about Trump. While he may not have thought much about human life and human dignity, he does think in very Manichean terms: You are either with him or against him.
Trump is well aware of who is against him and who is with him—and who elected him president. He knows that the pro-life movement is politically strong (especially at the grassroots level in many red states, and especially within the Republican Party) and supportive of his presidency.
And while abortion may not be an issue Trump particularly cares about or has thought much about, he does know that pro-life voters are with him; and so, he is with them, too. This is what critics mean when they say Trump is a “transactional politician.” They mean he has no (or few) real convictions. Instead, he does for you if you do for him.
There is something to this; but at the same time, what this tends to mean in practice—and certainly, what it means for the pro-life movement—is that Trump can be more firm and resolute than even many so-called conviction politicians like Reagan and Thatcher: but only if you are his friend, ally and supporter, and only if he perceives you as such.
That is why even occasional Trump critics like GOP Senators Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul go out of their way to show that they are all-in for the president.
Indeed, Graham will sometimes criticize Trump for being too weak or dovish on foreign policy, while Paul will occasionally criticize him for the opposite reason: for supposedly being too much of a neocon warrior. However, both Graham and Paul leave no doubt in anyone’s mind: They support the president, and don’t you forget it!
For them, and for GOP officeholders more broadly, this is a political imperative. GOP congressmen and senators realize that, to retain any influence on Trump, the president must view them as allies, not enemies. There is no middle ground in Trump’s mind.
Ironically, then, that is why and how a president who never much thought about public policy, and still doesn’t, can nonetheless be one of the most significant drivers of public policy ever to occupy the Oval Office.
Equally ironic, it is also why people who probably don’t like Trump personally, and are not fans of his obnoxious tweets and other regrettable public utterances, can nonetheless be among his most steadfast champions and supporters.
Feature photo credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters via National Review.