The deepening radicalization of Donald J. Trump
Former president Donald Trump's positions on a wide range of topics have become more extreme. (Illustration by Adriana Usero/The Washington Post; CNN, C-SPAN)
Watch how the former president’s positions and rhetoric have grown more confrontational and extreme as he seeks a second term
by Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Adriana Usero
In the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump stayed mostly silent, and when he finally delivered his farewell address to the nation, he disavowed the attack on the U.S. Capitol as something that “all Americans were horrified by” and “can never be tolerated.”
Now, as Trump seeks to return to the White House, he speaks of Jan. 6 as “a beautiful day.” He says there was no reason for police to shoot the rioter attempting to break into the House chamber, and he denies there was any danger to his vice president, Mike Pence, who was hiding from a pro-Trump mob chanting for him to be hanged. He has promised to pardon many rioters if he becomes president again.
On this and a host of subjects, from sexual assault to foreign and domestic policy, Trump’s positions have become even more extreme, his tone more confrontational, his accounts less tethered to reality, according to a Washington Post review of Trump’s speeches and interviews with former aides. Where he was at times ambiguous or equivocal, he’s now brazenly defiant.
Embracing extreme positions is nothing new for Trump: Since launching his 2016 campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and then pledging to ban Muslims from entering the country, he has promoted divisive policies, made inflammatory comments and prompted constitutional showdowns with Congress and the courts. But a return to the White House, in Trump’s own articulation, would be his chance to take revenge on his political opponents and push even further on his most polarizing programs.
The hardening of Trump’s stances comes as he has been operating for more than two years without the official apparatus of the White House, putting fewer gatekeepers and layers of review between him and the public. It also follows a long list of grievances he has accumulated from his eight years in politics.
To experts who have reviewed his proposals, Trump is sketching out the contours of a second term potentially more dangerous and chaotic than his first. Critics across the political spectrum have voiced alarm at his increasingly menacing rhetoric. But Trump’s most loyal supporters have relished his combative speeches and followed him in espousing harsher stances.
“I was a Democrat before,” said Greg Bouchicas, a construction business owner from Plaistow, N.H., who came to hear Trump speak in Manchester last month, which he said was his first political event ever. “The fake FISA warrant on Trump tried to take the election from him and failed,” he said, referring to the court-approved surveillance of some of Trump associates’ contacts with Russians in 2016. Bouchicas raised his arms and extended two fingers on both hands when Trump spoke about rebuilding the economy.
In the storyline Trump presents, he is always the victim, but so are his supporters: The shared experience of suffering through conflicts brings them closer and strengthens their bond, according to Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University and the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.”
“When authoritarian leaders lose office, they come back, like, 10 times worse — they never get less extreme, they always get more extreme,” Ben-Ghiat said. “January 6 was a profoundly radicalizing event for the base, for the GOP and for Trump himself, because even assaulting the Capitol you could get away with. His campaign events have to be seen as that of an extremist radicalizing people and emotionally reeducating people to hate people.”
At a rally in Waco, Tex., this year, Trump sought to discredit criminal investigations and the indictment he faces, disparaging them without evidence as examples of “prosecutorial misconduct,” and added, “when they go after me, they’re going after you.” Later in the speech, he repeated a refrain that has become a standard line at his rallies: “Together, we are taking on some of the most menacing forces and vicious opponents our people have ever seen, some of them from within. But no matter how hateful and corrupt the communists and criminals we’re fighting against may be, you must never forget, this nation does not belong to them — this nation belongs to you.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung pointed to a recent report by special counsel John Durham to support Trump’s claims. The report criticized the FBI’s investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, though it acknowledged the agency’s “affirmative obligation to closely examine” the initial allegations.
“President Trump has been proven right time and time again,” Cheung said in a statement. “The American people know the illegal witch-hunt by the [Justice Department] and Deep State tried to take down his Presidency, influence the 2020 election, and are now running the same playbook to influence the 2024 election,” he added, referring to the criminal probes the ex-president is facing, which Trump has attacked as politically motivated.
Trump’s aides have repeatedly encouraged him not to talk so much about Jan. 6 and the rioters, believing it is not a winning issue politically, according to advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions. They have tried to get him to talk about the ongoing criminal probes he faces as “election interference” rather than looking back to the last presidential election. But Trump has regularly talked to some of the families of people in prison, aides say, and has convinced himself that they are being mistreated. He also has a number of aides now who stay in touch with Jan. 6 families and rioters.
Trump’s former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly said he understood Trump’s recent defense of Jan. 6 to be his actual view, adding that Trump is prone to changing his position.
“All those people who tried to overturn the election, that’s exactly what he wanted them to do. He can’t be turning his back on the people who tried to save him in the election,” Kelly, who is no longer working with Trump, said in an interview. “There’s no compass. What is right today is not necessarily tomorrow. What’s right this morning may change four times before this evening. It all depends who he’s talking to and what he’s trying to accomplish in that moment.”