Donald Trump is not a protectionist. He is not an isolationist. He is not a nationalist. He is not a conservative. Terms like protectionism, isolationism, nationalism, and conservatism suggest some kind of social theory or doctrine. But Trump doesn't do theory.
Sure, as I have indicated in my previous posts, Trump is attracted to the theory of the unitary executive. But that's not because he's been persuaded that it's a correct theory. He is attracted to that theory only because, and only so long as, it serves his real priority: the restless search for directing the public attention of the world to Donald Trump.
That explains why he sometimes rejects positions in the afternoon that he took in the morning. Reversing himself so quickly surprises and shocks us so that we can't take our eyes off him. And that's the point of it all.
That's why my wife and I need the Wall Street Journal to provide us with a "Trump Tracker" every morning. This morning, it lists "45 Major Moves in 46 Days."
That's what you do if you're a grandiose narcissist like Trump.
Trump's grandiose narcissism also explains why Trump has decided to try in his second term to change the American regime from liberal democracy to competitive authoritarianism. Again, this is not because he believes that competitive authoritarianism is in principle a better form of government, but because in the present circumstances of American political history, this form of government offers him the best prospect for keeping public attention constantly focused on himself.
First, I'll remind you of what I have said about grandiose narcissism as a personality disorder displayed by some authoritarian political leaders like Trump and by some other primates who strive for despotic dominance. Then I'll explain what I mean by "competitive authoritarianism."
GRANDIOSE NARCISSISM
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders describes nine diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD):
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early childhood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g. exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
(3) believes that he or she is 'special' and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
(4) requires excessive admiration
(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.
Who does this remind you of?
The narcissism of people like Trump can often give them the swagger and charismatic excitement that make them the center of attention in a way that can be translated into political success. And, as Lincoln observed, many politically ambitious people like this will be satisfied in a liberal democracy to be elected as a congressman, a governor, or a president. But this will not satisfy someone like Trump who thinks himself a "Towering Genius" like Napoleon who needed to become the Emperor to satisfy the grandiosity of his ambition.
COMPETITIVE AUTHORITARIANISM
As Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have argued in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Trump's Napoleonic narcissism is driving him to overturn American liberal democracy and replace it with competitive authoritarianism (Levitsky and Way 2025). "Competitive authoritarianism" is the term they have invented as a label for a distinctively hybrid regime that combines elements of democracy and authoritarianism, which has emerged around the world over the past 35 years since the end of the Cold War (Levitsky and Way 2002, 2010).
I have written about democracy and autocracy as the natural but not inevitable products of human political evolution. What Levitsky and Way call competitive authoritarianism is a mixture of democratic competition and autocratic governance.
At one end of the political spectrum, a fully authoritarian regime either does not have multiparty elections for the executive and other offices of government, or it has elections, but they are not free and fair; and basic civil liberties (speech, press, association) are denied.
At the other end of the spectrum, a fully democratic regime has multiparty elections that are free and fair, most adults have the right to vote, basic civil liberties are protected, and the authority of elected governments is not restricted by unelected military or clerical powers.
Somewhere between these two extremes of the spectrum, a competitive authoritarian regime has multiparty elections, but they are not completely free and fair, because the incumbent's abuse of power tilts the electoral playing field against the opposition, and basic civil liberties are restricted to make it hard for the opposition to challenge the ruling party.
Under competitive authoritarianism, opposition forces can compete seriously for power. And, occasionally, the opposition can win an election, and the incumbents lose. But this regime is still not fully democratic, because the ruling party uses its power over the government to attack opponents and co-opt critics.
These three regime types are distinguished by the kind of countervailance--power checking power--that they allow. A fully authoritarian regime allows little or no countervailance. A fully democratic regime allows strong countervailance. A competitive authoritarian regime allows weak countervailance.
For example, in a competitive authoritarian regime, the ruling party can politicize and weaponize the government bureaucracy by filling it with party loyalists who will use the power of the government to punish opponents and reward allies. Levitsky and Way point out:
One of the first moves undertaken by elected autocrats such a Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey has been to purge professional civil servants from public agencies responsible for things such as investigating and prosecuting wrongdoing, regulating the media and the economy, and overseeing elections--and replace them with loyalists. After Orban became prime minister in 2010, his government stripped public employees of key civil service protections, fired thousands, and replaced them with loyal members of the ruling Fidesz party. Likewise, Poland's Law and Justice party weakened civil service laws by doing away with the competitive hiring process and filling the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and the military with partisan allies (Levitsky and Way 2025: 41).
But notice that of all of these examples of competitive authoritarian ruling parties, one of them--Poland's Law and Justice party--lost its majority power in Poland's parliamentary elections of 2023. So, this illustrates the real political competition in these regimes because the ruling party can occasionally lose to the opposition, even though the competitive playing field is unfairly tilted to favor the ruling party. In a fully authoritarian regime, the ruling party would never lose an election.
Notice also that the list of competitive authoritarians includes Viktor Orban, who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, the longest serving prime minister in the history of that country. For Trump and the right-wing intellectuals advising him, Orban is the model of what Trump would like to become in the United States.
Trump failed to do this in his first term for various reasons. He did not have enough experience in government to plan ahead what he needed to do. He appointed some establishment Republicans who were not slavishly loyal to him. And he did not fully control the Republican Party.
But now, he has come into his second term with a plan for establishing presidential authoritarian government provided to him by the Heritage Foundation (Project 2025), the Claremont Institute, The Federalist Society, and others. He has turned the Republican Party into the Trump Party, so that the Republican-controlled Congress will not restrain his authoritarianism. And he is filling the Executive Branch with his personal loyalists who will be his compliant servants.
Levitsky and Way are right in predicting that even if Trump is successful in doing this, he will not be able to establish a fully authoritarian regime--a fascist or one-party dictatorship. There will be mid-term congressional elections in 2026 and a presidential election in 2028. And Trump's opponents could win one or both of those elections. Because even if Trump establishes a competitive authoritarianism, it will be truly competitive, although the competition will not be fully free or fair.
And yet, as Levitsky and Way say, Trump's success in establishing an authoritarian regime will be limited in at least three ways. First, American constitutional institutions are stronger than in other competitive authoritarian regimes. For example, an independent judiciary, federalism, a bicameral legislature, and midterm elections are all absent in Orban's Hungary.
Second, Trump is not as popular as many of the successful elected autocrats have been. Some of them have had approval ratings of over 80 percent. Trump has never come close to that. Until recently, Orban and his party have been very popular. But now his popularity has fallen behind the opposition Tisza Party, which could win the parliamentary elections in 2026.
A third constraint on Trump is the countervailing power generated by American civil society. American capitalism generates a larger and richer private sector than is the case in any other country, and that creates dispersed power centers outside the government that are difficult to fully capture or bully.
But then, of course, the richest American is the leader of the Trump takeover of the government--Elon Musk. That raises an interesting question. How can a grandiose narcissist share the spotlight of public attention with another grandiose narcissist? The answer is obvious--he doesn't.
So, at some point, Trump will have to fire Musk. And he probably will blame Musk for many of the bad decisions made in Trump's second term.
REFERENCES (FOR THIS AND THE PRECEDING THREE POSTS)
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