Political positions of Donald Trump

Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, has described his views as "common sense,"^[1]^[2] "conservative,"^[3]^[4] and more recently "nationalist"^[5]^[6] throughout his business and political career, but particularly since 2016. While his political positions have often changed, he is generally inclined towards conservatism, anti-intellectualism, and populism.^[7] His approach has been characterized as McCarthyist^[8]^[9]^[10] and Nixonian.^[11] He is a prominent figure in the American radical right,^[12]^[13]^[14] and is informed by the views of his father, Fred Trump,^[15]^[16] who was registered with the Republican Party and privately embraced right-wing populism, Norman Vincent Peale^[15]^[17] and later Roy Cohn,^[18] who were both seminal figures in informing the strategies, tactics, and rhetoric of the Second Red Scare, which would evolve into the radical right. His views have been characterized as fascistic, illiberal, and aligned with Paleoconservatism and the Old Right.

Since 2000, he has consistently advocated for the reduction of income and corporate taxes, economic deregulation, expansion of school choice, and the adoption of a stringent "law-and-order" approach to policing and criminal sentencing, efforts to address illegal immigration through maintaining and later expanding stricter citizenship requirements, and since 2010, pursuing energy independence. In the realm of foreign policy, he endorses isolationism, supports a unilateral defence strategy, and seeks to renegotiate trade agreements to prioritize American exports. He has also been accused of espousing sexist, misogynistic, and anti-feminist attitudes towards women, as well as holding racist views toward African Americans and individuals of color that align with white nationalist sentiments; however, he has consistently rejected these allegations.

^ Gass, Nick (February 17, 2016). "Trump's new catchphrase: I'm a common-sense conservative". POLITICO. Retrieved April 26, 2025.
^ "Trump says he's 'not conservative': 'I'm a man of common sense' | Fox News". www.foxnews.com. Retrieved April 26, 2025.
^ Trump, Donald; Shiflett, Dave (2000). The America We Deserve. Los Angeles: Renaissance Books. p. 252. ISBN 978-1-58063-131-0.
^ Trump, Donald (2011). Time to Get Tough. Regnery Publishing. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-59698-773-9.
^ "Trump: 'I'm a nationalist'". Politico. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
^ Baker, Peter (October 23, 2018). "Promoting His Agenda, Trump Embraces the 'Nationalist' Label". The New York Times. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
^ D'Antonio, Michael (2016). The Truth About Trump. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. p. 209. ISBN 978-1-250-04238-5.
^ Salkin, Jeffrey K. (February 11, 2025). "Don't compare Trump's US to Nazi Germany. These 3 American moments are more apt". The Forward. Retrieved April 28, 2025. McCarthy knew how to seize on the public's fears. Trump has the same talent. McCarthy went ballistic on elites; so does Trump. McCarthy found ready scapegoats for America's troubles: communists. For Trump, it is immigrants.
^ Remnick, David (May 17, 2020). "What Donald Trump Shares with Joseph McCarthy". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved April 28, 2025. The Library of America recently put out a collection of writings by the Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter. It includes two full-length studies published in the early nineteen-sixties: "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" and "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Hofstadter was trying, in part, to understand right-wing leaders, such as Senators Joseph McCarthy and Barry Goldwater, and the prevalence of an antipathy toward expertise and an embrace of conspiracy theories that had been, he wrote, "catnip for cranks of all kinds." Hofstadter, who died in 1970, saw the country as "an arena of uncommonly angry minds," and it is hard to read him and not think of Trump's dark descants on "the Deep State," "the Enemy of the People," and, now, "Obamagate."
^ Jong-Fast, Molly (July 11, 2024). "How Donald Trump Echoes Joe McCarthy". Vanity Fair. Retrieved April 28, 2025. But where Howard [Fast] went astray, at least in the eyes of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his fellow red-baiters, was that he joined the Communist Party and refused to provide records of an anti-fascist organization to the House Un-American Activities Committee. This was a time of heightened fear and paranoia, just months after McCarthy delivered his infamous "Enemies From Within" speech in which he claimed to have a list of known communists working in the State Department. (And since history rhymes, later McCarthy hired as his chief counsel Roy Cohn, who would go on to mentor a young Donald Trump.)
^ Lemon, Jason (April 18, 2019). "Mueller Report Shows Donald Trump's Behavior Is 'Eminently Nixonian,' Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Says". Newsweek. Pointing to Trump's efforts at "shutting down enemies" and "trying to suppress stories," as well as the president's allegations that a so-called deep state and the media were aligned against him, [Elliot] Williams compared the current administration to that of President Richard Nixon. Nixon resigned in 1974 instead of facing impeachment proceedings over the Watergate scandal. "It doesn't stretch logic to find that you also had a president who was verging on paranoid of all the institutions of government, and the people around him, and his attorneys, and his national security community and on and on and on," Williams explained. "And so there is eminently Nixonian behavior here that we're seeing." Lawyer and legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin made a similar assessment following Barr's press conference just ahead of the Mueller report's release. Speaking on a CNN panel, Toobin referenced remarks by Barr that seemed to defend Trump against speculation that he had obstructed justice. The attorney general argued that some of the president's behavior was due to his "frustration" over "illegal leaks" from within his administration.
^ Neiwert, David A. (2017). Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump. London ; New York: Verso. ISBN 978-1-78663-423-8.
^ "The Year in Hate and Extremism: Far-right extremists coalescing in broad-based, loosely affiliated movement". Southern Poverty Law Center. February 5, 2021. Retrieved April 26, 2025.
^ Frostenson, Sarah (January 15, 2021). "How Has The Radical Right Evolved Under Trump?". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved April 26, 2025.
^ ^a ^b Kruse, Michael (October 13, 2017). "The Power of Trump's Positive Thinking". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved January 24, 2025.
^ D'Antonio, Michael (2016). The truth about Trump. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-250-04238-5.
^ D'Antonio, Michael (2016). The truth about Trump. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-250-04238-5.
^ Mahler, Jonathan; Flegenheimer, Matt (June 20, 2016). "What Donald Trump Learned From Joseph McCarthy's Right-Hand Man". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 10, 2025.

[1] Gass, Nick (February 17, 2016). "Trump's new catchphrase: I'm a common-sense conservative". POLITICO. Retrieved April 26, 2025.

[2] "Trump says he's 'not conservative': 'I'm a man of common sense' | Fox News". www.foxnews.com. Retrieved April 26, 2025.

[3] Trump, Donald; Shiflett, Dave (2000). The America We Deserve. Los Angeles: Renaissance Books. p. 252. ISBN 978-1-58063-131-0.

[4] Trump, Donald (2011). Time to Get Tough. Regnery Publishing. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-59698-773-9.

[5] "Trump: 'I'm a nationalist'". Politico. Retrieved October 23, 2018.

[6] Baker, Peter (October 23, 2018). "Promoting His Agenda, Trump Embraces the 'Nationalist' Label". The New York Times. Retrieved October 23, 2018.

[7] D'Antonio, Michael (2016). The Truth About Trump. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. p. 209. ISBN 978-1-250-04238-5.

[8] Salkin, Jeffrey K. (February 11, 2025). "Don't compare Trump's US to Nazi Germany. These 3 American moments are more apt". The Forward. Retrieved April 28, 2025. McCarthy knew how to seize on the public's fears. Trump has the same talent. McCarthy went ballistic on elites; so does Trump. McCarthy found ready scapegoats for America's troubles: communists. For Trump, it is immigrants.

[9] Remnick, David (May 17, 2020). "What Donald Trump Shares with Joseph McCarthy". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved April 28, 2025. The Library of America recently put out a collection of writings by the Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter. It includes two full-length studies published in the early nineteen-sixties: "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" and "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Hofstadter was trying, in part, to understand right-wing leaders, such as Senators Joseph McCarthy and Barry Goldwater, and the prevalence of an antipathy toward expertise and an embrace of conspiracy theories that had been, he wrote, "catnip for cranks of all kinds." Hofstadter, who died in 1970, saw the country as "an arena of uncommonly angry minds," and it is hard to read him and not think of Trump's dark descants on "the Deep State," "the Enemy of the People," and, now, "Obamagate."

[10] Jong-Fast, Molly (July 11, 2024). "How Donald Trump Echoes Joe McCarthy". Vanity Fair. Retrieved April 28, 2025. But where Howard [Fast] went astray, at least in the eyes of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his fellow red-baiters, was that he joined the Communist Party and refused to provide records of an anti-fascist organization to the House Un-American Activities Committee. This was a time of heightened fear and paranoia, just months after McCarthy delivered his infamous "Enemies From Within" speech in which he claimed to have a list of known communists working in the State Department. (And since history rhymes, later McCarthy hired as his chief counsel Roy Cohn, who would go on to mentor a young Donald Trump.)

[11] Lemon, Jason (April 18, 2019). "Mueller Report Shows Donald Trump's Behavior Is 'Eminently Nixonian,' Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Says". Newsweek. Pointing to Trump's efforts at "shutting down enemies" and "trying to suppress stories," as well as the president's allegations that a so-called deep state and the media were aligned against him, [Elliot] Williams compared the current administration to that of President Richard Nixon. Nixon resigned in 1974 instead of facing impeachment proceedings over the Watergate scandal. "It doesn't stretch logic to find that you also had a president who was verging on paranoid of all the institutions of government, and the people around him, and his attorneys, and his national security community and on and on and on," Williams explained. "And so there is eminently Nixonian behavior here that we're seeing." Lawyer and legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin made a similar assessment following Barr's press conference just ahead of the Mueller report's release. Speaking on a CNN panel, Toobin referenced remarks by Barr that seemed to defend Trump against speculation that he had obstructed justice. The attorney general argued that some of the president's behavior was due to his "frustration" over "illegal leaks" from within his administration.

[12] Neiwert, David A. (2017). Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump. London ; New York: Verso. ISBN 978-1-78663-423-8.

[13] "The Year in Hate and Extremism: Far-right extremists coalescing in broad-based, loosely affiliated movement". Southern Poverty Law Center. February 5, 2021. Retrieved April 26, 2025.

[14] Frostenson, Sarah (January 15, 2021). "How Has The Radical Right Evolved Under Trump?". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved April 26, 2025.

[:02-15] Kruse, Michael (October 13, 2017). "The Power of Trump's Positive Thinking". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved January 24, 2025.

[:32-16] D'Antonio, Michael (2016). The truth about Trump. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-250-04238-5.

[:42-17] D'Antonio, Michael (2016). The truth about Trump. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-250-04238-5.

[:22-18] Mahler, Jonathan; Flegenheimer, Matt (June 20, 2016). "What Donald Trump Learned From Joseph McCarthy's Right-Hand Man". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 10, 2025.

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Political positions of Donald Trump

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