Trump’s seemingly inevitable romp to victory in Nikki Haley’s home state reveals how strong his hold on the GOP is — and how dangerous he remains to democracy.
Tonight, South Carolina will hold its Republican presidential primary, in which Donald Trump is all but certain to crush rival Nikki Haley in her home state. Ordinarily, this might feel like big news, as the Palmetto State tends to host one of the most important early contests. Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, after dismal finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, is one of the biggest reasons he’s president today.
But the coming vote feels irrelevant: The 2024 Republican primary isn’t and never has been a competitive primary. Trump simply wasn’t going to lose a contest for the hearts and minds of the Republican base. Ideologically, psychologically, even spiritually — it’s the Trump party through and through.
I and others have been arguing this for years now. Yet during those same years, many prominent people in politics and the media deluded themselves into thinking he might be dethroned. They have been wrong every time and continued to be wrong long after the strength of Trump’s grip on the GOP could not be denied.
There’s a lesson to be learned from this track record of failure, one deeper than just “Republicans really like Donald Trump.” Trump’s persistence tells us something critical about the nature of the current Republican party — and why it’s become such a danger to American democracy.
How Trump keeps wiggling his way out of jams
Ever since the early stages of the 2016 GOP primary, the same pattern has repeated itself over and over again: Some new development that looked politically dangerous for Trump ends up not mattering at all. This happened so many times in the 2016 election cycle alone that it became a running joke during the campaign.
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@BronzeHammer
The pattern continued through Trump’s presidency, and most strikingly after January 6 — when Trump managed to maintain majority support in the Republican party after inciting an honest-to-god insurrection. At that point, you’d think it would be obvious that Trump was going to cruise to renomination in 2024. Yet somehow, the delusions of a Trump collapse persisted.
During the January 6 Committee meetings in summer 2022, there was widespread speculation that the dramatic public hearings had weakened Trump’s hold on the GOP. Republican primary voters proceeded to disprove this theory by booting the House members who voted for his impeachment and nominating full-MAGA election deniers, like Arizona’s Kari Lake, to contest key swing races around the country.
These candidates performed poorly in the 2022 midterms, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis cruised to reelection. This led many observers to see DeSantis as a possible Trump killer, with some going so far as to anoint DeSantis the frontrunner in early 2023. Soon after that, DeSantis’s poll numbers collapsed.
After the DeSantis train crashed, Trump skeptics crowned Haley the next anti-Trump Republican hope. She secured critical funding from Americans for Prosperity Action, the political arm of the Koch empire, in November — raising the Haley hype to surprising heights going into 2024. In mid-January, prominent pundit Jonathan Rauch gave Haley roughly a 40 percent chance to win the primary, adding that “the odds might shift in her favor quickly.”
Then she lost by double-digits in her supposed stronghold of New Hampshire, and the writing was on the wall in great big bold letters.
None of this speculation tracked Trump’s poll numbers. The former president consistently led in the polling averages, generally by wide margins. So why did so many get this so wrong?
Sometimes, the explanation is mundane wishcasting: centrist or anti-Trump Republicans desperately wishing to avoid a choice between a threat to democracy and a Democrat. But in some cases, there’s a more interesting explanation — that even some of the GOP’s critics didn’t fully appreciate what it had become.
New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, one of the more perceptive of these critics, was an early booster of DeSantis’s chances. In August of last year, he admitted that he had gotten it wrong — and wrote an interesting column trying to explain why he erred. Chait’s basic argument is that Trump’s cult of personality was far more powerful than he had appreciated.
“Defeating Trump in a contest determining who can most effectively advance ideological or party goals is difficult but attainable. It is obviously impossible to defeat Trump in a contest of who is most loyal to Trump,” Chait concluded.
This is surely a key part of the story. But it also raises a more fundamental question that Chait doesn’t attempt to answer: Why does the Republican base have such unwavering faith in the man?
Trump’s celebrity charisma alone isn’t enough of an explanation. Otherwise, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would bestride the GOP like a colossus. Nor is Trump’s fawning coverage in the conservative media. Fox News has repeatedly tried to turn the Republican base away from Trump and toward figures like DeSantis, only to have to kiss the ring when the voters didn’t follow their lead.
The answer, at least as far as I can tell, is that Trump’s cult is the product of his unique ability to channel the cultural grievances at the heart of the current Republican party.
Again and again, social scientists found that the best predictor of Trump support among Republican voters is the degree to which they feel discomfort with the changing nature of American demographics and social norms. Trump has sold himself as the only person capable of fighting back against the alleged elite conspiracy behind these changes, saying things like “I alone can fix it” and “I am your retribution.” From these building blocks, he has created a full-scale political movement dedicated to reconquering America.
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Scott Olson/Getty Images
Trump’s appeal isn’t premised on delivering concrete policy goals, nor even “owning the libs” with high-profile stunts. It is about assuaging the sense of fear and resentment at their America being replaced: about achieving victories that assuage the sense of psychological assault created by things like mass immigration, a Black president, shifting gender roles, and a beloved beer brand cutting an ad with a trans influencer. Donald Trump, as a figure, represents the America they know and love. His victories are their victories, his defeats their defeats.
This frame helps us understand why Trump can’t be beaten inside Republican politics. It also clarifies why Trump has been able to steer the Republican party so harshly against democracy.
By making his very person into a stand-in for the existential struggle for America’s soul, he has created a world where any loss represents an intolerable blow against everything good about the country. Such a setback can only come from a place of deep corruption — from the Swamp and “Democrat-controlled cities.” And if American democracy has truly been subverted this thoroughly, the logical conclusion is clear: We have to “fight like hell” to save it.
The South Carolina primary’s irrelevance points to this deeper and darker story. It is one we must wrestle with in order to truly appreciate the stakes in the coming general election.
Javier Milei, Nayib Bukele, and Donald Trump are all working out of the same populist playbook.
Meet two of the hot speakers at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC): Presidents Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Javier Milei of Argentina, two of Latin America’s most flamboyant right-wing populists.
CPAC started in 1974 as an annual gathering of conservatives; over the years it has turned into a days-long, livestreamed far-right spectacle. Policy is discussed and refined while movement luminaries like former President Donald Trump and House GOP Chair Elise Stefanik are given the opportunity to share their ideas with a receptive audience.
It might be a little sleepier than usual this year, but the conference still reveals where American conservatism is headed. And the two Latin American leaders’ presence underscores the right’s continued affinity for populist and even illiberal leadership — particularly when combined with modern personal brands built online.
They aren’t the first extremist leaders to speak at CPAC: Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil have featured in past years. Like Orbán and Bolsonaro, Bukele and Milei are staunch populists who have proposed radical solutions to serious problems in their countries.
The American right finds those radical proposals attractive, even if the policies likely couldn’t — or shouldn’t — be instituted in the US. Bukele has, seemingly, mitigated El Salvador’s serious gang violence problem through mass arrests and incarceration, while Milei’s economic policies are supposed to right Argentina’s inflation-plagued economy.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has praised both men; though he has yet to meet Milei, the former president enjoyed a friendly relationship with Bukele. Other conservative figures, including Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) of the Freedom Caucus, have praised Milei’s push for “limited” government.
The two leaders are important voices at CPAC as conservatives work to draw in Latin American voters before the election in November; Bukele in particular is popular among Salvadorans living in the US. But their presence at the conference is about more than trying to win votes, Erica Frantz, a professor of political science at Michigan State University, told Vox — it’s about creating a particular type of international far-right ideology.
“Linking Milei and Bukele with the Trump movement is advantageous for all parties involved,” she said. “For Milei and Bukele, it gives them the opportunity to strengthen an alliance with the potential presidential candidate most likely to be sympathetic to their authoritarian ambitions.” For Trump and his supporters, “it is a chance to send a message to supporters that its style of politics is gaining steam outside US borders.”
Bukele and Milei were elected to tackle big issues
Bukele has had a long relationship with the pro-Trump right since his first presidential election in 2019. That relationship started online, among cryptocurrency enthusiasts. The ideology underlying cryptocurrency is decidedly libertarian, with many adherents calling for the abolition of treasuries and central banks.
Bukele’s profile rose when El Salvador began accepting bitcoin as legal tender, and he’s remained popular despite the damage it’s done to the country’s economy following the cryptocurrency crash of 2022. But the leader’s crypto fixation — which is affecting the country’s ability to secure international financing — is almost quaint in the face of his authoritarian turn, ostensibly to address the country’s serious crime problem.
Gangs controlled most aspects of life in the country, which was once known for having the highest murder rate in the world. With a campaign of mass arrests, Bukele has indeed tackled El Salvador’s crime problem. But that has come at a steep cost, as I explained last year:
Successive presidential administrations have taken different approaches — many have adopted the mano dura, or “iron hand” tack, instituting harsh crackdowns to mitigate the violence. But Bukele is on an entirely different level; his administration has imprisoned tens of thousands, many arbitrarily, repeatedly extended a state of emergency severely curtailing the rights of ordinary citizens, and attacked and even detained his critics in the press.
The country now instead boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Despite the human rights violations, Bukele’s policies have been popular in El Salvador. Given the astounding level of violence that ordinary people have suffered under the gangs’ power — and the rapidity with which the violence decreased — it’s not ultimately that surprising that Bukele won a second term in office, despite the fact that he has dismantled parts of El Salvador’s democracy, manipulating institutions from the country’s Constitutional Court to its legislature, to do so.
Though the policy appears to be working in the immediate term, critics argue it isn’t sustainable for two major reasons. The first is that Bukele has made no effort to build a long-term social or economic infrastructure as an alternative to gang violence. The second is that the sense of security people currently feel requires sacrificing other forms of security, such as the rule of law. “[Bukele’s] popularity is built on illegality and undemocratic actions,” Noah Bullock, the executive director of the human rights organization Cristosal, told Vox. “There is no historic precedent where the use of state violence has produced lasting peace.”
That didn’t stop Bukele from suggesting the US ought to learn from his policies during his CPAC speech on Thursday. “We can clearly see the signs of a declining society because our own hit rock bottom decades ago,” he told the cheering audience. He urged Americans to look at “big cities in decline like Baltimore, Portland, New York, just to name a few places where crime and drugs have become the daily norm.”
Milei has only been in office for a couple of months, so he’s had less time to implement his libertarian economic policies. And he might not be able to do that much; already in his brief tenure, the congress voted down his party’s omnibus bill, which included fiscal measures aimed at managing inflation as well as an attempt to secure emergency legislative powers for, potentially, his entire four-year term. Along with deregulation and privatization efforts, the omnibus bill hinted at Milei’s social agenda: It would have reduced prenatal parental leave for women and slashed environmental protections in favor of business interests.
Milei will speak at the conference Saturday, most likely about his efforts to privatize state enterprises and cut down on regulations — both topics with great appeal to CPAC’s audience.
US conservatives benefit from Bukele and Milei’s illiberal policies
Bukele and Milei were each granted a mandate by presenting extreme solutions to serious problems in their countries that have long frustrated citizens. But they have clear ideologies and proclivities toward illiberalism that emerge within those contexts, too.
“They are able to articulate a real problem in society and propose solutions,” Daniel Rothschild, executive director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, told Vox. When people are truly struggling, they respond to those policies, “even if they are illiberal.”
In his speech on Thursday evening, Bukele warned that the US was headed for the same kind of violent, gang-plagued system that defined El Salvador. But he, like Trump and other conservatives, exaggerates the problem the US faces. Trump and his allies have argued that cities (especially those in Democratic-controlled states) are full of violence, and they have also made a bogeyman out of the gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS13, which has terrorized El Salvador along with Barrio 18.
It is true that MS13 actually started in the US and has had a presence here. It is also true that violent crime, including homicide, increased during the social upheaval of the pandemic, and that certain kinds of property crimes have increased. But violent crime is now at pre-pandemic levels and has trended downward overall since the 1990s. In other words, there’s simply no parallel to the violence and terror wrought by gang violence in El Salvador.
It’s not hard to see why Trump and others at CPAC would want to champion someone like Bukele. He exemplifies “tough on crime” rhetoric and, to their minds, proves that the only way to avoid the “American carnage” Trump warned of in his 2017 inauguration speech is to restrict human and civil rights and undo democratic norms and institutions.
Milei, despite having struggled to pass his policies, similarly embodies conservative ideals. His efforts to curb government spending and significantly reduce the size of the government echo the Republican party’s rhetoric of limited government and tighter belts — but the US isn’t dealing with 140 percent inflation or a 57 percent poverty rate.
It’s still early in Milei’s tenure, but it is important to note that he and Bukele — like Trump — exemplifies what Frantz and others call a “personalist” leader. “The party that supports them is intricately linked to their persona rather than a clear policy platform,” Frantz explained.
Social media is an important tool in the personalist leader’s playbook that Milei, Bukele, and Trump have all used to their advantage — they don’t have to go through establishment channels that might soften their policies or their rhetoric.
That social media following has created a wave of “millennial authoritarianism,” as researcher Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez termed the phenomenon, which brands these leaders as iconoclasts who reject the “establishment.”
“With personalist parties,” Frantz said, “leaders pretty much have a free rein to behave as they please, and — particularly when their party gains majority legislative representation — the door is wide open for democracy to deteriorate.”
Even if Milei is struggling to pass his policies in Argentina, he’s still able to paint himself as a warrior in the fight against socialism, as he apparently will do in his CPAC speech. That will solidify his ideological link to US conservatives and show “a very clear picture” of how far-right politicians “learn from each other, how they are connected with each other, and they are sharing an agenda that, far from being local, is a global network,” Paula Avila-Guillen, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Women’s Equality Center, told Vox.
Ultimately, US conservatives like Bukele and Milei because they are hardliners who are using extreme tactics to deal with society’s problems — and are willing to thumb their noses at institutions to get there. As Frantz told Vox, their presence at CPAC is “an effort to cue the conservative base to see authoritarian rhetoric as ‘normal’ and strongman rule as the only solution to society’s problems.” In other words, the message is that not only is there nothing to fear from Trump’s more anti-democratic tendencies, but there’s much to gain from them.
The groundbreaking development speaks to the growing role of private companies in space.
Houston, the US is officially back on the moon.
On Thursday, an unmanned lunar spacecraft called Odysseus made the first US moon landing in 50 years. The spacecraft, which was produced by Texas-based engineering firm Intuitive Machines, marks major progress in the country’s ongoing investments in space exploration and provides helpful new data that can be applied to upcoming lunar missions, and even trips to Mars.
Odysseus is also the first private spacecraft to ever land on the moon, underscoring how American businesses are taking a more prominent role in US space endeavors.
Their interest and involvement in space has meant the ability to test more technology more quickly, something that has been evident in SpaceX’s rocket launches, including repeated failed missions. Bolstered by government funding and a faster-moving experimental mentality, these companies are able to refine their offerings at a swifter pace than a government agency, which might often have to deal with more regulations and red tape.
“We’re seeing quite a large growth in the number of companies and private interests in the space business,” said Johns Hopkins University physics and astronomy professor Charles Bennett.
While private companies have long been key partners for NASA, Bennett said they’ve taken charge of more aspects of space exploration in recent years. SpaceX, for example, has become a key developer of rockets and intends to launch its own commercial missions. Additionally, the industry as a whole has seen a surge in growth and funding as more governments and consumers across the globe have become increasingly interested in space.
Odysseus’s successful journey will ultimately be useful to scientists as they prepare for NASA’s manned Artemis missions, set to travel around the moon in 2025 and land there in 2026. Those missions are dedicated to establishing a long-term US presence on the moon, with the goal of using that experience to inform later journeys to Mars.
The moon landing, explained
Odysseus, a robotic spacecraft, touched down in the region of the moon’s south pole on Thursday evening following a somewhat rocky descent. Intuitive Machines announced then on X that it was working to “downlink the first images from the lunar surface.” Notably, Odysseus is an autonomous spacecraft, which means it was able to land itself on the moon, a challenge that has foiled numerous past missions.
After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data.
— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 23, 2024
Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface.