Ron DeSantis and the failure of pseudo-Trumpism

Now that Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the Republican primary race and endorsed Donald Trump, the race for the party’s presidential nomination has become more than just a battle of personalities — finally, it is a battle of ideas. With DeSantis’s pseudo-Trumpism firmly rejected, primary voters now have a choice between two ideological visions for the future of the party and the United States: Trumpism and pre-Trumpism.

Trumpism, at its core, is the American version of the transatlantic phenomenon of national populism. Local variants in the West differ, but they share common characteristics: opposition to mass immigration, for instance, as well as socially conservative programmes and protectionist trade policies previously favoured by the trade unions.