Talk:Trumpism

OR, SYNTH, gross misrepresentation of sources

Pretty much what the section title says. Most of the fanciful claims made in the text were not actually supported by the sources provided. Someone wrote an article about what *they* think this "Trumpism" thing is and then tacked on a whole bunch of sources which did not support the text to make it look legit.

I cleaned it up. There's probably some POV problems left, mostly POV-through-omission. In particular any negative descriptions of "Trumpism" from the sources provided appear to have been purposefully omitted.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:56, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Also a bunch of ridiculous nonsense - the "teachings and theories of Donald Trump"? Seriously? And this survived in the article (unsourced, of course) for a full week? Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:05, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Trump "explicitly" considers women and blacks subhuman

This material, sourced to a Guardian editorial, is ridiculously UNDUE and adds essentially nothing of value to the encyclopedia. Just for starters, Trump has never "explicitly" said anything of the kind. You might want to calm down and consider the wise words of Scott Alexander, who endorsed "anyone but Trump" during the election: "What if, one day, there is a candidate who hates black people so much that he doesn't go on a campaign stop to a traditionally black church in Detroit, talk about all of the contributions black people have made to America, promise to fight for black people, and say that his campaign is about opposing racism in all its forms? What if there’s a candidate who does something more like, say, go to a KKK meeting and say that black people are inferior and only whites are real Americans? We might want to use words like 'openly racist' or 'openly white supremacist' to describe him. And at that point, nobody will listen, because we wasted 'openly white supremacist' on the guy who tweets pictures of himself eating a taco on Cinco de Mayo while saying 'I love Hispanics!'"TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 08:57, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

There's a basic question as to whether "Trumpism" is an encyclopedic subject or if it's just a neologism. If the latter, it shouldn't even have an article. But it does. And this Guardian source is one that has been repeatedly trotted out to support the idea that "Trumpism" deserves an article of its own. So if you're gonna make the argument that "Trumpism" is encyclopedic because the Guardian writes about it you... sort of have to actually use the source.

Given the paucity of sources that actually discuss "Trumpism" as it was a thing, the Guardian source is not in the least bit undue. This appears to be nothing more than just some WP:IDONTLIKEIT on your part.

I don't see what Scott Alexander has to do with diddly here.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:06, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I have deleted the "explicitly" sentence as an outrageous and largely false charge, sourced only to one obscure (no Wikipedia article) op-ed writer. I am considering whether this article actually has any merit, or if it exists only to criticize Trump (note that the lede sentence says it is about the CONTROVERSIAL remarks of Trump, in other words, singling out the bad stuff). There was very little definitive or factual information even before the massive deletions by User:Volunteer Marek. Possibly this title would be better off as a redirect to Political positions of Donald Trump. Let's not do anything now while I think about it. --MelanieN (talk) 16:21, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to take this article to AfD. I don't think it has any merit. --MelanieN (talk) 16:44, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it has no merit and should be deleted. BUT - you can't decide that a claim should be removed because you personally feel it's "outrageous and largely false" when it's an actual reliable source saying it. Is it an opinion piece? Yes, yes it is. But so is every single other source which has written anything about "Trumpism" (aside from the dictionary definition - please actually check that [1]). You can't pick and choose - oh, this opinion piece in a reliable source is ok, but this opinion piece in a reliable source is "outrageous". Especially since we're talking about the Guardian here.

Now of course - and I whole heartedly agree - if an entire article is based on just opinion pieces, then we really shouldn't have that article. It should be deleted. And thank you for nominating it there. BUT if somehow this article is retained there is no reason to exclude that quote and even there's all kinds of reasons (due weight, npov) to include it.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:52, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Come on, VM, you know better than this. There is not "an actual reliable source saying it." Yes, the Guardian is a Reliable Source in its news reporting. But the fact that an opinion piece is printed in the Guardian does not give it any credibility. Opinion pieces are written (naturally) by opinionated people. There is no editorial oversight, no fact checking, no sources to back up what is said in an op-ed. We can cite them for opinions; we cannot cite them for facts. Fact: we have never seen any EXPLICIT comment from Trump, or a Trumpist politician, saying that women or people of color are less than fully human. That claim is not even a distortion or exaggeration of something he has said; it is made up out of whole cloth. --Melani[eN (talk) 21:26, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok, first, the title of this section is false. The source and the text do not claim that Trump "considers women and blacks subhuman", the source and the text claim that Trumpism does so. These aren't the same things.

Second, like I said, yes, it's an opinion piece. But so is this (explicitly labeled "Post Opinion") which you just restored to the article. And that one is an opinion piece in some small town newspaper. You can't remove an opinion piece from the Guardian because it's an opinion piece but add an opinion piece from "Salisbury Post". I mean, how does that logic work?

This is also an opinion piece (explicitly labeled "Opinion")

This is also an opinion published on a blog.

This is also an opinion... from the freakin' John Birch Society!

This is also an opinion piece, although a very in depth one.

And this is also an opinion piece.

Basically, this entire article is based on almost exclusively opinion pieces. So why remove one but not the others? In fact, that very same Guardian opinion piece is used in other places in the article but you seem not to object to that.

So we either remove *everything* cited to opinion pieces or we keep the Guardian.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:35, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I can't believe you are seriously arguing to restore this to the article. Show me anyplace (other than this op-ed) where such a statement was ever made by anyone in the name of "Trumpism". The guy states "Trumpism has two main ingredients. The first is the notion that people of color and women are less than fully human. This idea isn’t new to the Republican party – far from it. But Republicans usually prefer to be a bit less explicit in their reliance on racial hatred and misogyny." He has NO sourcing, no quotes, nothing to support this claim that Trumpism is explicitly based on this; he just says it. The rest of this article, even if based on op-eds, is pretty innocuous. This is an A-bomb, an explosive and vicious charge that MUST have better sourcing than one obscure writer. --MelanieN (talk) 22:02, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Hopefully this article will get deleted and this whole discussion will be moot. But the point remains - if you're going to base an article on op-eds you can't cherry pick only the op-eds you like and leave out the ones you don't (still don't see how a Guardian op-ed is "UNDUE" but an op-ed from small town newspaper which - no offense to that fine institution of quality journalism that is the Salisbury Post - no one heard of, is not). And you can't cherry pick the parts of an op-ed that you like and leave out the parts that you don't. That Guardian op-ed is used throughout the article!

As to the content of the quote, it's actually not that unusual and that point has been made throughout the election [2], [3], [4].Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:30, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there is plenty of evidence and coverage that Trump is perceived as appealing to racism, i.e., bias or even repressive action against people of color. That could be included here, if sourced to "trumpism", and it is included in other Trump-related articles. But there is NO evidence, except for that one unsourced claim from that one op-ed writer, that he "explicitly" says "women and people of color are less than fully human". That is the outrageous, made-up claim I deleted, for many reasons. 1) "biased against people of color" is not equivalent to "believes them to be less than fully human." Not even close. Nobody can reasonably put that kind of words in his mouth. 2) Although Trump is prone to sexist talk that seems to objectify women, he does not seem to promote bias against women. 3) He makes his racist comments indirectly, not explicitly. That's why I "cherry-pick" this one comment as inflammatory and having no basis in fact, while leaving other more innocuous op-ed comments. I truly can't believe you can't see the difference. --MelanieN (talk) 17:15, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Trumpism is about what sources say Trumpism is about

Re [5] with the edit summary "This article is about his political beliefs. It is not about things he has said,".

The source literally says "the "controversial and outrageous" remarks made by, Donald Trump". You can't argue with the source, especially when it is the only source being used which actually defines the term.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:25, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

The source is defining two entirely different meanings of the word Trumpism - as dictionaries often do. One (1.) is a political ideology, as in "These are the principles of Trumpism". The other (2.) refers to a particular thing he has said (comparable to a Bushism): "He came out with a classic Trumpism today". This article is about the first definition, the political ideology. It is not about "here's another Trumpism", i.e., something cute or controversial or false or however you are defining the remarks that qualify as a Trumpism. A typical Bushism would be "Is our children learning?" A typical Trumpism might be "You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy." A totally different subject from what this article is about. --MelanieN (talk) 21:31, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Since this is a new word I don't see why we should choose one definition over the other. Time will tell which definition ends up being more relevant, but for now, for us as encyclopedia editors to pick one over the other is essentially "original research" (i.e. "this is the important meaning in the source, this other part of the source, I don't like, so it's not important"). I think that the article "Trumpism" is also about controversial things he said. Why not? Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:40, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I suppose we could add a separate section on "Trumpisms" to this article, but I'm not sure what it would be based on; I'm not aware that any outside source has published a collection of "Trumpisms". (Unlike "Bushisms", which were the subject of multiple books and other aggregations). And without any outside source having collected them and identified them as Trumpisms, our section of this article would be based on Original Research. The fact is that if a word has multiple meanings we don't have to accommodate all the meanings in a single article; in fact we rarely do. We very commonly have different articles about the different meanings of a word; that's what DABs are for. This article is about the political philosophy. An article about "Trumpisms" in the other sense could be created, if there are sources to support it. In the meantime, since there is nothing about the second meaning of Trumpism in the article, we can't include it in the lede - especially if putting it there gives the impression of conflating "Trump's political philosophy" with "controversial things Trump has said". --MelanieN (talk) 21:51, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

We don't have to have a collection of "Trumpisms". What we do need to have is a definition of Trumpism that is actually provided by the source - "controversial things he said". If a word has multiple meanings, according to sources, we most certainly do need to add least mention these multiple meanings.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

And it's not conflating anything if we're explicit about the fact that there are two different meanings. That's why we use the word "or".Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:33, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

The constant use of subjective phrasing and terms in the article

(This dispute deals mainly with the absence of attribution and subjective language presented in the Wikipedia voice)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Attributing_and_specifying_biased_statements

There is a consistent use of subjectivity in the article with peacocking terms, along with abstract and ambiguous citations.

The short description is inaccurate and somewhat generalized. The sources cited, Peter J. Katzenstein and David Lebow, actually contradict that Trump "developed" Trumpism. The first citation states that Trumpism has always been present in American history (see right-side note of first page of the paper linked).

In fact, the paper says that Trumpism "is deeply rooted in the traditions and history of the United States." It is true that Trump did not "develop" Trumpism. This wording has been removed. Instead, I adapted the wording to reflect the meaning defined in the Cambridge dictionnary and in the paper of Peter J. Katzenstein. Michael.alexander.kaufmann (talk) 13:52, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

The second citation argues the idea that neoliberalism developed Trumpism.

I just removed this citation. Michael.alexander.kaufmann (talk) 13:52, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

See the Ideology section. "Ideologically, it has a right-wing populist accent,[3] whereby Trump's political style also shows traits of authoritarianism." This gives two claims which aren't followed up with any information that supports this statement, such as a political analyst quote or mention of a credible source (X has compared Trumpism to Y, or X has stated Trumpism has Y). This is the same with the claim of what traits "Trump's political style" shows. This is subjective and needs to be quoted or referenced to a source making that statement. The article cannot itself present that statement as absolute fact. This goes against NPOV. The other statements in the section are just ambiguous and do not explicitly state who stated what, instead it's again presented as objective facts when it should be sourced to an individual/platform.

In the contents section, "Trump has shown a disdain for Canada as well as the transatlantic partners (NATO and European Union), who have been considered the most important allies of the United States so far." Another subjective opinion presented as objective fact with no explicit referencing to who stated it. See "Another characteristic of foreign policy is a sympathy for autocratic rulers,", as well, as it doesn't give reference to where that statement comes from and presents itself (again) as objective fact.

The article is primarily peacocking and needs to be rewritten in a NPOV manner, that references sources instead of presenting subjective opinions as objective facts, and that doesn't use biased/opinionated/editorialized language. SubjectiveStopper (talk) 21:12, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

SubjectiveStopper The dogma being forced upon this article is excessive and damaging to Wikipedia. I agree with you in that the article is innately subjective and borderline-heretical due to its partiality. I have tried to improve these issues, particularly the ones that you mention, among other issues of the article, yet, other editors have reverted en masse edits without stating a cause. These issues among other concerns must be addressed prior to any further editing. Blatant violations of WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:QUO, and WP:IRI, must be rectified. The article alone should be a redirect to Political positions of Donald Trump, which it was at one point, yet, I believe the participants of the discussion could not and did not foresee the dogma and lackluster quality of the article that it would become. The article is clearly invoking Trump's policies as president, yet, with reception and reactions of such policies by journalists, news organizations, etc., is clearly dogmatic and redundant to Wikipedia. This necessitates a redirect to the appropriate article at this point. Aviartm (talk) 15:02, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Aviartm I disagree that this page should redirect to Trump's political positions. This point of this article is to explain Trumpism, a political style, not Trump's political positions. Trump popularized this style, hence why it's named Trumpism. SubjectiveStopper (talk) 23:04, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

SubjectiveStopper What is a political style without political positions? And what style of marketing of a politician for convincing voters necessitates its own article? Which, to fulfill successfully, would require the citations and sources that are currently presented to be presented differently, which is your issue of "subjective phrasing and terms". There are various pages with presidents and their last names with -ism that redirect to their political positions or the president: Reaganism, Tylerism and Kennedyism. Grantism is a notable exception showing the negative elements of the Grant Administration; Clintonism is the type of page that this article should become; and Wilsonianism discusses the foreign policy of the Wilson Administration. Yet, to have a simplified, basic version of Trump's politics is redundant as we already have the main page for it. If Trumpism ought to be like Clintonism, every section of the article should be removed except Contents, which should be renamed to Characteristics, and be presented as such. Aviartm (talk) 00:04, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Aviartm I didn't fully comprehend your reply, but I'd like to answer your question of "What is political style without political positions?" A "political style" refers to how one does something, rather than what they think about politics or policy. Someone's political positions may describe their ideology, which may influence their political style. But the political style has nothing to do with the political positions themselves. Simply put, political style refers to the technique, mannerism, and expression of politics, not the politics themselves.

SubjectiveStopper My question was more rhetorical, implying the innately difficult separation of political style and political positions. Yet, as I said earlier: "And what style of marketing of a politician for convincing voters necessitates its own article?" And with the vast, vast majority of reporting that uses the term "Trumpism", it is implying the politics and policies of Trump and his tenure as president thus far, not how to apply it and advertise it. Aviartm (talk) 03:03, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Aviartm Regardless if your question was rhetorical or not, it is not "innately difficult" to separate political style and political positions. I've clearly stated what the difference is, I even cited you a peer-reviewed academic political science journal on JSTOR that defines the term. If you would like to argue what the definition is, I suggest you find a source and create a citation (as I did) that supports your argument. However, in this matter, I have doubts you will find a source more reliable that a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that's been published for almost 115 years. Also, I have been looking into the recent changes being made on the article page. There are massive amounts of Original Research. For example, in the section "Ideology", "It attempts to mobilize the disenfranchised" is given with the citation of a page 83, table 4.1, of the book "Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter". This is a stated opinion for two reasons. Firstly, this has nothing to do with "Trumpism", but rather Trump himself. The table citied is simply a table of percentages of who voted for Trump. Secondly, stating "It attempts to mobilize the disenfranchised" is inaccurate because this chart says nothing of what Trumpism "attempts" to do, it's simply a recording of an exit poll of what percentage of people voted for Trump based on a certain category. A more accurate statement would be "Certain categories voted in higher percentages for Trump than for Clinton". However, this statement would (as before) have nothing to do with Trumpism, but instead with Trump directly. Furthermore, this chart is given a citation on the bottom to "http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html?_r=0", making this a primary source. Because the editor gave an analysis based on this primary source, it falls under Original Research, which is not allowed. I will be making major changes to the page in the following days as there seems to be no change to the NPOV guidelines, that were is original research being made on the article page, and that claims are being made with citations to sources that either contradict or are irrelevant to claim itself. SubjectiveStopper (talk) 09:39, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

SubjectiveStopper Your concerns are of edits implemented by others. I have tried to rectify this among other issues of the article, yet they are reverted en masse without basis. Your concerns mentioned are completely valid and need to be addressed. And the definition of "political style" is right. However, the fundamental subjectivity of how Trump convinces, markets, expresses, addresses, manipulates, persuades, induce, sway, etc. is the issue here; WP:NOTOPINION) and WP:OR. Further, the absolute historicity of this article has stated and/or implied "the policies", "ideology", "political ideology", etc. of Donald Trump since its creation. Political ideology is not political style if what is and has been discussed and implemented is since day one political ideology of Donald Trump. The fact that this article has tried to express Trump's political policies and ideology makes it ever more rational to redirect the page to Political positions of Donald Trump at this point. My recommendations is to either: redirect the page to Political positions of Donald Trump or: only discuss, very briefly and concisely, the characteristics policy-wise (like Clintonism) of Trumpism, as that is how the term has been used by news organizations predominately. One more thing. – "On Political Positions of Donald Trump", there is a political affiliation and ideology section and a "as described by others" section , which renders the valid existence of this article to nothing at this point. Aviartm (talk) 13:37, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello. So the neutrality of this article is disputed. Howerer, it is my intention to create a neutral encyclopedia article explaining the topic of Trumpism. Can we discuss what needs to be changed so that you can agree to the article?Michael.alexander.kaufmann (talk) 11:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

You may follow along with the current discussion and address any of the concerns mentioned thus far if you will like. Aviartm (talk) 13:47, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I just did - you reverted my edits. Is there any objectve reason to remove the following passages? This is important content that characterizes Trumpism as an ideology. Michael.alexander.kaufmann (talk) 14:17, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

As we are now at a standstill until consensus is reached, per the Administrators' board on edit warring, we must resume on such measures. My objective reasons to counter your edits were stated in my edit summaries: "Reverted back prior to notices; Donna Brazile is not a good authority on the distinctions of Trumpism and Lincoln Republicanism (hence, it was removed); moved Katzenstein assessment to "International reception"" and "Reverted good faith edits by Michael.alexander.kaufmann (talk): Concensus is still being built; Katzerstein is under International Reception; do not need duplicates in header. (TW)". And if you noticed, I did retain some of your edits and fashioned them more appropriately to the article, yet, you undid what I did for you. It is counterproductive to undo several of my different edits, pertaining to different parts of the article that you have not thus far edited, just because an edit of yours was removed. Such actions inhibit the general progress of any article. The issue is either irrelevant, poor, and/or misplaced information. I hope we may be able to reach a consensus in addition to SubjectiveStopper's inputs and anyone else. Aviartm (talk) 17:00, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

According to Peter J. Katzenstein, Trumpist ideology is held up by the pillars of nationalism, evangelical Christianity, and an emphasis on ethnic identity, each of which is deeply rooted in the traditions and history of the United States.

Trumpism differs from classical republicanism in many ways; for instance, regarding free trade, immigration, equality, checks and balances in federal government, and the separation of church and state.

For example, in his speech accepting his nomination as the Republican presidential candidate on August 28th 2020, Trump claimed he passed Veterans Choice, when in fact Obama signed the law in 2014; or he claimed that Democrats wanted to open the borders, when in fact, the Democrat presidential nominee and his party clearly support controlled immigration.

References

Is Trumpism really conservative?

Is Trumpism really a form of conservatism? Is not his whole idea to shake the political establishment by triggering the emotions of the voters, and to change what was done by the previous adminstration into something new? Trumpism does not seem to promote fiscal conservatism, so the main correlation with conservatism is that Trump appeals to conservative voters. Trump is far from tradiotional. I would consider Trumpism to be more of a polpulist approach lacking a traditional ideology, and I have heard it described as "national-collectivism". Tradition, limited government and free trade are (were?) important american conservative values, but none of those seem to be valued by Trumpism. Trumpism is constantly shifting, and unpredictability seems to be a negotiation strategy (internationally at least) - which I would claim is opposed to conservatism. Trumpism supports american exceptionalism and (currently) rule of law, but is that really sufficient to classify Trumpism as Conservatism? American conservativism and european conservativism may be drifting apart so that Trump is still conservative in the eyes of americans. (?) In my view Trumps unorthodox style does not become conservative even if his voters consider themselves conservatives. Markuswestermoen (talk) 14:01, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Ultimately we have to go by what the sources say; in this instance, it is described as a form of conservatism. — Czello 15:39, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I must be overlooking something then, as I fail to see which sources that claim that Trumpism is a form of conservatism. The german source claims that mainstream conservatism and neo-conservatism has been "swept away" and changed by Trump. The next source claims that Trumpism is based on neoliberal reason. Further down sources argues that he is more of a plutocrat than a facist. The latter two are hardly american conservative values, and everything prefixed "neo-", to put it oversimplified, is new and thus not conservative. (Here in Norway we actually have a Trumpism-party called "The Alliance" which is basically a right-wing nationalist anti-EU party. They got 639 votes (of 4199382) in the 2019 election.) Markuswestermoen (talk) 08:46, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Recent removals

I think Czello is right to restore the materal removed in 2601's two edits. The nature of this article is such that it will inevitably feature a lot of opinions and interpretations and probably fewer statements of fact. This isn't a problem in itself, though it's of course important to limit ourselves to opinions of accredited experts and not give undue weight to marginal positions, nor to present opinions as though they were facts. It's probably not viable to try to centre this article around "stated and affirmed political positions" for the simple reason that we have another article that does that, Political positions of Donald Trump. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 12:28, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, and I agree. Just to make everyone aware, this edit was also made, removing two other sources because AirmanErik believed the was "no proof" backing up the claims (I assume this is the same user as the IP, given the similarity in edit summaries). I didn't revert this one, however; while I disagree with his logic (it's not up to us to decide how much proof is behind a source), I chose to leave it as it was as they were both newspaper opinion pieces -- which are generally seen as unreliable. I was tempted to revert this edit for the reasons you said above, however, so I can't say I'd oppose re-inclusion. — Czello 12:38, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I had the same thought about them being newspaper sources; also that there should probably be in-text attribution (i.e. "Lee Drutman, Larry Diamond, Joe Goldman have said..."); and also that I'm not really sure what either the Times or Post is trying to say about Trumpism (each only really uses the word in passing) in relation to authoritarianism, and I don't think "Trump's political style also shows traits of authoritarianism" is a good summary of it. I expect we could find much better scholarly sources on that connection, e.g. [6], [7], [8], just from the first page of Google Scholar results. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 13:09, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Definitions

Below is a definition section deleted by admin User:MelanieN, with the summary:
Reverting good faith addition. We could use a better definition, but these "definitions" are mostly non-neutral and are the opinion of various individual writers. Discuss on the talk page to figure out what kind of "definitions" should be included.
With the exception of the New Yorker article, they all come from searching the term "trumpism" on google, though, of course, google is biasing its searches towards what it thinks I would like to see. Other editors please add definitions, though I doubt you will find many that are not "opinion of various individual writers". --Louis P. Boog (talk) 21:51, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Definitions

Some of descriptions and definitions for the term "Trumpism" include:

• An early definition from when he was still running for office comes from political scientist David Edward Tabachnick:
  • celebrity, specifically celebrity from a television program where he played a "tough decision-maker",
  • nativism and "birtherism" (the belief that Barack Obama is not a US citizen because he was not born in the United States, later disavowed by Trump),
  • anti-establishment outsider leadership,
  • populism made up of a "mish-mash of overt patriotism, economic nationalism, along with a vague commitment to the middle class and an aggressive but indefinite foreign policy".
• Shortly after his election Newt Gingrich gave a speech on "Understanding Trump and Trumpism", which he explained as "kicking over the table" (of establishment politics); "draining the swamp" of politically correct government; speaking directly to voters through twitter.

Later on during his administration other descriptions included:

• What President Trump "believes on any particular moment on any particular day about any particular subject", rather than a thought out, consistent ideology or point of view. (Republican analyst Ron Christie, who worked for the George W Bush administration);
• the undoing of "anything that seemed to be a signature Obama-era policy - health, climate change, the Iran nuclear deal, better relations with Cuba". (BBC editor Jon Sopel)
• Opposition to crime, illegal immigration, “Sanctuary” state or city policies. (Republican strategist Jen Kerns)
• "Political phenomenon" whose most important feature is the leaders (Trump's) efforts to escape from "the irksome constraints of values and norms and institutions" of American democracy, using the "generalized distraction and noise" of "disinformation" to wear out and disorient those keeping track of him or opposing him. (journalist Joshua Yaffa)
• A cult (Dan Rather, Anthony Scaramucci);
  • Cult expert Steven Hassan argues Trumpism resembles a cult since Trump “employs many of the same techniques as prominent cult leaders and displays many of the same personality traits”; namely a belief that he is "the only one with the answers, the only one who can fix things", a "deep need ... to be the center of attention ... to control others", a lack of empathy for them, and propensity to "lie without hesitation". Trump is supported in the conservative and religious media by a cult-like "black-and-white, all-or-nothing, good-versus-evil, authoritarian view of reality that is mostly fear-based", and by denial of facts that do not "protect the image of the leader." Growing up Trump was influenced by the beliefs of his father and Norman Vincent Peale’s church "that the only sin is doubting yourself", but if you avoid that sin "magical things are going to happen".
• Professor of journalism Peter Beinart, predicts that once Trump is out of office, Trumpism will become "a term of abuse", like McCarthyism, rather than any sort of political philosophy.

References

References

Any definitions we use should be serious or scholarly - not just some journalist's or politician's opinion. Even you must recognize that most of these citations are not "definitions" in any valid sense; they are just the person's opinion of Trump. And any description that includes verbiage like "mishmash", "irksome complaints", etc. is not a serious attempt at defining his philosophy. But, Wikipedia works by consensus; let's see if we can get some more people into the discussion and see if we can reach a consensus on whether to have a "definition" section and/or what should be included in it. IMO the whole article is already an attempt at a definition and we may not need a separate section. Certainly not by stringing together every offhand comment somebody has made on the subject. (BTW when I edit here I am not acting as an administrator, but as just another editor, per WP:INVOLVED.) -- MelanieN (talk) 22:59, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Neither historian- scholar Anne Applebaum, nor social psychologist researcher Bob Altemeyer regard Trumpism as an ideology, or coherent set of beliefs. Applebaum (who has previously written on "Putinism") associates the term with the individual claiming Trumpism is something like gilded age apolitical, amoral self dealing: "All three [Pence, Pompeo, Barr]] are clever enough to understand what Trumpism really means, that it has nothing to do with God or faith, that it is self-serving, greedy, and unpatriotic." Atlantic article Altemeyer on the other hand associates the term with the followers, the so called "Trump base", and believes what binds them is psychological predispositions for particular social orders, which can fairly accurately be measured by the social dominance or RWA scales. He describes the analysis in non academic form in a book he co-wrote with John Dean "Authoritarian Nightmare" on page 108 (passage here). The views of both these scholars are controversial, though the social psychological perspective on Trumpists is far less unflattering as that of the picture of them as comparable to Vichy collaborators. Both of these sorts of non ideological definitions of the phenomena are in the literature and deserve some mention in this article, or one related to it. J JMesserly (talk) 21:57, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Proposal- Social psychology material be moved to its own section

The material is out of place in the "reception" section. The phenomenon of trump followers has been a focused area of research since prior to 2016. J JMesserly (talk) 08:37, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Non english Citations.

I have found english translations for 3 or 4 of the german articles, and am working on the others. Some of these are good articles but my feeling is that we have comparable articles in english and should phase out any non english sources unless they are non replaceable. In the case of Dr. de Nève's brief article for hessenschau.de, the link was dead, so I looked it up on archive.org. I am not seeing that this supporting citation cannot be easily replaced with something from one of the many other sources already given. If someone feels differently, here is the archive.org link. Perhaps it would be useful for the De.wikipedia.org article: de Nève's article J JMesserly (talk) 05:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Neutral/ subjective templates

This article has been substantially upgraded since these two templates were added to the article. I was on a long hiatus from WP editing while these controversies erupted, but I am unaware whether anyone presently viewing the article believes these two issues still require attention. If no one can come up with any specific work items that need to be undertaken related to these previous deficiencies, then it seems to me that it may be time for the templates to be removed. J JMesserly (talk) 02:58, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

J JMesserly, for what is worth it, I agree; so I say go ahead. Davide King (talk) 12:22, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Template Essay like?

On 2 Nov, the Template “Essay-Like” was added to this article, with no explanation. On the editor’s talk page, I have requested they post on this page suggestions for how the article might be improved regarding whatever essay like qualities they feel are present. If anyone has any specific examples of where the article is “like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay”, then it would be helpful to list them here so that these deficiencies may be addressed. Thank you. J JMesserly (talk) 00:01, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Apparently there are no specific reasons for adding this tag, and so the presumption will be that the tag was added needlessly. J JMesserly (talk) 07:04, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Did you ping the editor? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:58, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Let's do it now. Sup, @Dosafrog:. — Czello 12:36, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Hey sorry about the delayed response. I initially added the tag because I felt like certain sections of the article - particularly the Non-ideological aspects, Social psychology, and Reception sections - seems to read like a compendium of opinions from experts rather than a more generalized explanation of the subject. I acknowledge that since this is a relatively recent political phenomenon, there is a dearth of reliable sources, so leaving in the authors might be apposite. If other editors find the tag unnecessary, I completely understand. Appreciate any input. Dosafrog (talk) 18:28, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

It is a tough situation for the reason you state. Because there does not appear to be a unified "generalized explanation of the subject" we are stuck with providing readers with a survey of the various perspectives, and each section is presenting that diversity of viewpoint at varying levels of quality. My view is that the survey structure does not make the article "a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay". Since @Dosafrog: has kindly offered to be amenable to removal of the template, I will state my view is that this particular quality template is inappropriate. Interest in this conversation appears to be lagging and since no one appears to have a position in the negative- so unless anyone objects, I will omit the flag in some future edit in the coming days. I'm in no hurry though so if people thinks there are specific work items that need to be performed prior to its removal, then by all means, it would be a service if they could be enumerated in the interest of improving the quality of the article. J JMesserly (talk) 21:45, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Dosafrog's observation that the recent and multiple radically different uses of this term makes this article more difficult to develop. Reading the prior controversies on this talk page, I think one admin accurately summed up the article as necessarily a collection of different definitions of what Trumpism is. A "generalized explanation of the subject"- meaning some sort of authoritative statement of what the term does and does not mean- is therefore not realistic, but this does not mean that a wikipedia article is impossible. There are many articles on controversial subjects, and I agree with the prior concensus that policy positions belong mostly in the article on political positions of Donald Trump. I also agree with MelanieN's perspective that we should mostly rely on citations from academic sources, not those in the popular press pushing particular partisan points of view. For this, there is a large body of material in the academic world. Scholar.google.com and various online sources of dowloadable papers and books have been invaluable. Our article is now is far more robust in the number of citations and diversity of bibliographic sources- some from the 19th century.

So my view is that the article is best presented as a survey of perspectives. For example, even the view that Trumpism is an ideology is disputed. - for example by pulizer prize winning historian Anne Applebaum who thinks it is better viewed as a set of political mechanisms, and that ideology is secondary to Trumpism- that as with what (in her view) are similar autocratic movements- it really is primarily about staying in power, and that principles are only employed when they are useful for rationalizing an action. She is not alone in her analysis, but I have declined to add material from her book on the subject yet due to the heightened emotions following the recent collapse of the Trump presidency. Even in the social psychology section, there is no consensus. I have given some small coverage of academics from the empiricists following Adorno's line of analysis, but have not had time to summarize a counter view from those covering the social identity theorist perspective. There is a similar balkanisation of analytical perspectives in the political science field which are barely mentioned in the article.

I think it is fair to say that some of these perspectives paint the movement in a positive light while others paint it in a less complimentary fashion. To this end, the summary topic sentence is presented as a list, and I think we editors ought to make special efforts to reach common ground on neutral language. For example- there have been numerous edits removing the term "illiberal democracy", but one definition of the term is the populist sense, that any democratically voted on policy should be allowed, regardless if it does not adhere to norms of pluralism or multiculturalism. This dispute about liberal democracy's principle of putting checks on majoritarianism is a very very old one, and those who promote the non liberal view have a great deal of company with respected political thinkers stretching back to the dawn of democracy. So "illiberal democracy" is not an insult, though unfortunately it can be taken that way. In this case, the term is compact and economically gets the idea across, but in the atmosphere of high emotions, there seems to be eggshells scattered everywhere on the ground, so even simple term choices like this can drain editor attention in needless edit wars. I have invited discussions on the talk page to such anonymous editors, but have gotten no takers as yet.

Anyway, are people ok with presenting the subject as a summary of the literature on the subject? If so, which areas are weak, and can we break them down into a set of concrete categories? J JMesserly (talk) 20:54, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-Protected Edit Request

Given today's results, I hereby move we write that Trumpism is a "discredited" political ideology, much like Nazism, Fascism, and its other intellectual forebears. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.30.187.155 (talk) 01:04, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

There are a substantial number of observers who do not regard it as an ideology but something else (take your pick from the alternate descriptions in the article). Further, I am very skeptical that any academic journal in the near future would provide citable passages supporting such a partisan and historically premature assessment. I am sure you will see many editorials from reputable sources in the popular press supporting such a statement, but if the consensus is that it is best we limit ourselves mostly to citations to academic sources, then I would not favor such a statement. J JMesserly (talk) 02:23, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

 Not done Clearly a biased request. — Czello 17:21, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Bringing this up to a higher level

Trumpism is not a clearly defined ideology in terms of WP:COMMON, that is common usage for the term Trumpism varies widely, and the article as it stands attempts to create that definition. This is absolutely unacceptable. I am going to demote the existing content to a section, and place a more generic definition of Trumpism according to common sources, at a higher level so that this point of view stuff gets framed for what it is - an attempt to create a definition. Keizers (talk) 15:00, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

WP common redirects to Ignore all the rules. I don't understand what wiki principle you are citing. J JMesserly (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Your point that the article attempts to create a definition was the subject of extensive prior discussion. I was not party to the disputes, but the consensus position was not to attempt to create a definition, but to provide a survey of the diverse perspectives on what the term means. The summary that you removed lists in compact forms the different kinds of usages of the term, and replaces it with the notion that Trumpism is about the ideas of Donald Trump. Neither the authoritarian theorists or the social psychologist academics agree with this view. Many of the former think that ideas are of secondary importance- that they are only useful to the authoritarian so long as they have the desired effect of drawing masses to the leader. The latter group largely believe the phenomenon has to do with a predisposition for dominance narratives in the followers, or alternately that it describes a particular form of collective identity that coalesces around a leader. There are citations in academic literature which are amply provided in the article supporting these particular perspectives on trumpism, so the substitute summary of the ideas of Donald Trump constitutes a false statement.

Your citing of popular press support for your definition goes against the general perspective that we ought to rely on academic sources for the reasons stated above by MelanieN in the Talk:Trumpism#definitions section. The BBC quote for example cites Ron Christie, who is providing a partisan definition (trump supporters would call him a never trumper) that is pejorative- that Trump's ideas are the product of momentary whimsy. So your substitute quotations from popular sources are unsatisfactory for reasons amply explored in the above disputes.

Placing the current summary statement within the Right wing conservative ideology is a misunderstanding about the content of the summary. The mechanisms for acquiring and retaining power have nothing necessarily to do with right wing conservatives. As Lowenthal points out in prophets of deceit, they are techniques used by left wing agitators as well. The authoritarian theorists will point out the same. So if you are going to attempt a new summary, I think you ought to understand the content of the article better.

We can iron out these deficiencies, and I can go along with some good ideas in your substitute statement, and restructuring the summary sentence to more clearly represent it at as a list of interpretations of a polysemous term. But let's come to a consensus on that new summary instead of unilaterally altering a summary sentence which has been in place for How does that sound? J JMesserly (talk) 21:08, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for that proposal. I am not sure I have the energy and time to effectively advocate for a revised structure. Also, I find trying to understand what you are saying, as well as what is in the article, quite daunting. I have a master's degree, but academic use of language, even in your comments above (e.g. "dominance narratives"), requires research for me to understand it, let alone for the average reader. Let me try to explain, in my layman's terms, what needs to happen to the article. It needs to reflect first and foremost the term in common usage WP:COMMON. While academia may have defined a range of ideas called "Trumpism", I am not sure that that is a commonly accepted definition of what Trumpism is. If "Trumpism" in common usage is either the ideas of Trump, or what Trump says in the moment, or loyalty to Trump, then that must be explained in one section. And practically the whole content of the article as it is now, needs to be demoted one level under a heading "Academic definition of Trumpism" or some such. I am, frankly, intimidated from trying to create that now due to the quality and academic nature of the material written thusfar. Keizers (talk) 21:36, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

There is no common definition, neither of the academic or non academic "commonly accepted" variety, as summarized in September by MelanieN in the Definitions section. You seem to think that WP:Common has something to do with common usage. Can you please read what WP:Common actually states? It is about ignoring the rules (use common sense is where common came from, not "Common use" as you seem to suppose). And please consider MelanieN's excellent point (see Talk:Trumpism#Definitions section) about not relying on citations from the popular press. There is wisdom there. I am sorry that a rigorous consideration of Trumpism can involve unfamiliar phrases. Many in the popular press were shocked and remain baffled by the rise of Trumpism and its ability to capture a near majority of a well educated democratic nation, but for many in the academic world who have been studying this sort of phenomenon since Le Bon in the 19th century, it came as no shock. Comprehending these kinds of deep ideas, and clearly communicating them to the wider public is what Wikipedia is about. To answer your query, "dominance narratives" has to do with the social psychology or rhetorical (literary sort of) analysis. The former have links in the social psychology section. Lowenthal is linked to in the article, and his 1949 book is online (referenced in articles). He calls them themes. Many of the early thinkers were studying how the nazis radicalized german voters, but I think it is needlessly incendiary to bring that up in the article because it is misleading. Le Bon predated the events in germany and at that time the great fear was of the irrational mob revolting against the ruling elite. As explained in part in the article on Social dominance theory, the term granularity of narrative extends from the highest level (dominance of the in group over the outgroup) to middle level personal myths (positive thinking of oneself as a successful smart dominant, or submissive inferior) reaching the lowest level of behavioral scripts or schemas for particular dominant-submissive social situations. I am not a particular partisan of any of these academic views. My personal point of view is that the mechanisms used by Trumpist type movements are profoundly effective and deserve better comprehension by the general public if modern liberal democracies are to survive. J JMesserly (talk) 21:58, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate your motivation for writing the article and am starting to digest the content. However, Wikipedia is not the place for us to express out motivation for democracy surviving, but rather providing a description of "things"; which you are doing in any case. I would comment the following:

1) I meant to quote WP:COMMONNAME, which says articles must use the most common term as their title. it is not stated explicitly, but a logical conclusion of this is, that in case of multiple common meanings, the term must be defined. So this really needs an intro section covering the fact that Trumpism is most frequently used in a more general sense or no specific sense at all, i.e. undefined as to whether it means simply supporting Trump, supporting his main ideas, or as BBC said, supporting whatever the heck he happened to tweet (I don't mean that as a joke... part of the "platform" or ideology IS CHAOS and Trump's moods/instincts/randomness. The press is an important source to gauge this usage of the term. Simply stating what academics define as Trumpism, is not complete and in fact it is one-sided (even though perhaps intellectually superior). 2) It would be great if the article could be revised to use as much plain language as possible. Keizers (talk) 14:59, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Of course, I wanted to make it clear that I am not particularly inclined towards any of these various perspectives described in the article.

Just to be clear, regardless what you think is a logical inference about a statement made in WP:Article titles guidelines, the naming of titles policy section linked to by wp: Commonnames says nothing about definitions. If it is your feeling that there is some unwritten WP policy regarding definitions as you have stated above, then the correct place to argue what I believe is dubious logic of your inference is on the talk page of WP:Article titles. I would suggest though that any such guideline on definitions would best be added on a policy regarding article content, not article titles.

One approach earlier taken is that there be a definitions section (see talk section on deleted definitions section above). Perhaps you have a view on that dispute.

You wrote, "Simply stating what academics define as Trumpism, is not complete and in fact it is one-sided." I don't comprehend this statement. Academics from the string theory perspective on Quantum physics have a "one sided" view by definition. It doesn't mean that their perspective should not be mentioned in the quantum physics article, regardless whether we do not know which perspective is the more correct one. WP's role is not to arbitrate in a hotly contested disputes on what is the correct and incorrect ways to think about a given contentious subject. I think the best approach is to clearly describe the perspectives as best we can relying on authoritative sources. That seems to be the approach of prior editors and I agree with it.

The general consensus as I understand has been that quotes from the popular press generally should be avoided in this article for the reasons stated in many of the disputes listed on the talk page (eg "Recent Removals", "subjective phrasing", and so on some of which ignited edit wars). I happen to agree with the decisions made, but the matter is not closed and I was not party to those discussions or disputes, so perhaps @MelanieN:, @Czello: or @Arms & Hearts: might comment further on what the common ground is. Perhaps there is a better approach regarding definitions, so you would like to enter into dialog on a different approach in the relevant talk page sections discussing them.

I do agree with your point that the intro is deficient in that it omits the fact that the term refers to a range of different perspectives. "Populism" is a similar term which many in political science believe is virtually meaningless in common usage because it is used is so many different ways. We should say something about this polysemy in the intro. J JMesserly (talk) 19:10, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

This article is ideologically biased against Trump

For example, when it gives the opinion of Mr. Katzenstein, that Trumpism rests on "three pillars": nationalism, race, and religion. This is utterly false and is meant to imply the false narrative that Trumpism is just another form of white nationalism. Anybody of any race or religion can support Trump. Yes, we are nationalists, but we are not racists, we are not theocrats, we don't believe in any form of ethnic nationalism. ANYONE, and I mean, ANYONE, is welcome in our movement. There are PLENTY of black, gay, hispanic, Muslim, and etc. supporters of Trump. And Trump supports them! The reason why this looks like ideologically biased is because this article fails to represent our viewpoint, and so it is no objective, it obviously is meant to be framed against Trump and attempt to falsely label him as "racist". He's not. We're not. There are also numerous other examples of this article's bias, too many to point out now, and I have already provided an example. It is quite sad really, it's just more confirmation of the overall left leaning ideological bent of Wikipedia in general. This is why nobody trusts you, this is why nobody trusts the media anymore. You don't represent these things accurately, you simply give your ideological opinions on them. --71.234.217.123 (talk) 07:56, 11 November 2020 (UTC)