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The Aesthetics of Trumpism
Unpacking the iconography of a man and a movement
Trumpism is, in many ways, a foreign country. To quote L.P. Hartley, they do things differently there.
We’ve watched Donald Trump for years, seeing him emerge from his minor celebrity into a TV superstar, and then rebranding again as a political firebrand. The man has remained uncompromisingly the same, not even allowing his hair to change with natural decency. But around him the iconography has transformed and the images of wealth — and its twin, poverty — have mutated with almost offensive ease.
Trump is no aesthete. He does not care for colour except gold or green. He does not have a cultural grounding or eye for art. He is motivated by quite different forces, but the relationship he and his movement have with aesthetics is fascinating.
For his own part, Trump supposedly has cultural tastes more befitting the metropolitan New Yorker he was a few years ago than the salt-of-the-earth, defender-of-the-people he’s become. He’s cited Citizen Kane (“He had the wealth, but he didn’t have the happiness”), The Godfather and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly amongst his favourite movies, whilst All Quiet on the Western Front is said to be his favourite book. But his relationship with culture has always been secondary to his desire to be visible — he…
