Jacksonian: Donald Trump’s Politics of Fear
The Republicans who support Trump—who disproportionately lack college degrees—are largely what Walter Russell Mead calls “Jacksonians.” Jacksonians—whom Mead distinguishes from democracy-spreading “Wilsonians,” commerce-oriented “Hamiltonians,” and empire-fearing “Jeffersonians”—are hawkish isolationists.
.. They don’t believe that American security depends on democratizing far-off lands, something they suspect is impossible. And when there’s a crisis in some other part of the world, their first reaction is likely to be: Why can’t the countries over there handle it?
.. They’re the kind of people who, during Vietnam, told pollsters that America should either bomb North Vietnam back to the stone age or get the hell out.
.. Another Jacksonian favorite was Joseph McCarthy, who told Americans that battling the Soviet Union did not require costly foreign deployments or complex international alliances. America could keep itself safe simply by rooting out communists at home.
.. Trump has responded to Americans’ fear of foreign threats by arguing that the real menace lies within. Since the Paris attacks, while the “serious” GOP contenders have proposed establishing no-fly zones and arming Kurdish rebels in Syria, Trump has focused on registering Muslims and closing mosques in the U.S. while insisting that he “watched … thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrate 9/11.
.. And among Jacksonians, his message is resonating for the same reason McCarthy’s did: Because if the core problem is treason at home, not geopolitics abroad, then solving it is cheaper and simpler. Instead of solving the world’s pathologies, you simply expel them from your midst.