Donald Trump’s second presidential term exposes how the structural logic of populism breaks down under its own expansion. As adversaries proliferate and the claim to embody a unified “people” weakens, antagonism survives but representation frays. What once relied on a clear, if contestable, moral divide now operates through thinning legitimacy and the staging of permanent confrontation.
By Ece Özbey
Following the 2024 United States (U.S.) elections, I argued, mindful of the surge in scholarship and commentary sparked by Trump’s first term, that we should resist the temptation to “make populism great again.” This was not mere rhetorical flair but a caution: After nearly a decade of Trump-centered politics, the concept of populism risked becoming both overused and underthought. Everything disruptive was labeled populist. Every democratic crisis was filtered through that lens. The term was stretched so widely that it threatened to lose its analytical edge.
Yet one year into this second presidency, I find myself wondering whether I should have been more careful what I wished for. The debate on populism has indeed faded — not because Trump’s politics have moderated, but because their acceleration has eclipsed the populist frame itself, redirecting attention toward far more unsettling developments. Trump 2.0 no longer operates in half-measures or coded insinuations. He governs in a mode of open escalation: radical in tone, maximalist in ambition, and increasingly unconstrained in scope. His confrontations no longer stop at domestic elites; they reach outward to democratic allies, neighbors, a widening array of global institutions, and even inward to critics within his own movement. What once appeared as a sharply defined populist script now resembles a pattern of rule that thrives on disruption for its own sake.
The familiar logic of “the people against the elite” begins to look strangely inadequate in a landscape defined by open disputes with traditional partners, clashes with moral authorities, and visible fractures within the very support base that brought him back to power.
If populism thrives on a clear moral binary and a unified popular subject, what happens when the enemies multiply without limit, and the very “people” in whose name politics is conducted begin to splinter?
Populism’s Canonical Logic (and Trump’s Initial Fit)
However defined, whether as a thin-centered ideology, discursive frame, political strategy, or performative style, populism ultimately hinges on an antagonistic moral binary that pits a virtuous “people” against a corrupt “elite.” It is through this divide that the populist leader asserts an exclusive claim to representation. He does not merely compete within democratic politics; he embodies the authentic will of the masses and casts opponents as illegitimate. This (Manichean) worldview — pure versus impure, righteous versus corrupt — is what gives populism its mobilizing power.
Trump’s original ascent to office fit this canonical logic remarkably well. His rhetoric framed Washington elites, entrenched bureaucrats, career diplomats, and mainstream media as conspiratorial actors working against “real Americans.” The language was blunt but effective: The people had been betrayed, and only an outsider unconstrained by political elite norms could restore their voice. Trump’s populism thrived on polarization, but it was selective and strategically bounded. The enemy was identifiable, ethically charged, and politically functional.
Crucially, this form of populism rested on a plausible claim to represent the real citizens, or at least a morally legitimate one. Even when electoral victories were narrow, Trump framed his support as evidence of an authentic popular will thwarted by corrupt intermediaries, insisting at every turn that “the system is rigged.”
Early Trumpism thus combined people-centrism, elite antagonism, and moral certainty in a way that aligned closely with how populism is theorized in comparative politics. What we are witnessing today, however, is no longer this familiar configuration.
Enemy Inflation
Populism depends on antagonism, but this antagonism must remain bounded to be politically meaningful. Trump’s second presidency has instead been marked by what might be called enemy inflation, a dramatic expansion of the constructed oppositional “other” that stretches populist logic beyond its limits.
Domestic elites are no longer the primary target. Trump’s antagonism now extends outward and upward: toward international institutions historically regarded as pillars of U.S.-led global order, long-standing democratic allies, geopolitical rivals, moral authorities, and even entire regions. China and Russia, self-declared as the greatest national threats, now sit alongside the European Union, NATO partners, and neighboring states such as Canada, Mexico, and Cuba on an expanding roster of adversaries. Leaders of Ukraine and South Africa get publicly disparaged in the Oval Office rather than strategically engaged; threats and coercive language are directed at Venezuela, Colombia, Greenland, and Iran alike. The symbolic geography of conflict becomes global and indiscriminate, and it is increasingly operationalized through policy instruments, most visibly in the punitive deployment of trade.
This expansion reflects a broader shift from anti-elitism to a more systemic anti-order politics. What already surfaced domestically, most strikingly on January 6, now finds expression beyond the national arena. International institutions and multilateral forums are no longer treated as imperfect but legitimate arenas of contestation. They are recast as integral components of a hostile and immoral system. Trump’s rhetoric moves beyond criticizing “the establishment” and instead seeks to delegitimize any authority capable of constraining or questioning U.S. action.
This logic persists even beyond institutional politics, for instance, in the cultural realm where Trump’s antagonism now operates more diffusely. Trump has never shied away from expressing personal tastes or airing cultural grievances, routinely singling out pop stars, late-night comedians, and professional athletes. Yet when the President recently described himself as “anti-them” in explaining his refusal to attend the Super Bowl, this remark felt less like a moment of cultural provocation than an illustration of how far his “enemy set” has ballooned. The formulation was an apt example of how Trump’s antagonism has detached from strategic political stakes and the classical populist binary. The enemy is no longer a defined minority but an open-ended, amorphous “them,” expandable at will.
Yet populism’s antagonistic clarity depends on contrast. Broadening the target from a specific locus of corruption and evil to include whoever stands momentarily outside the leader’s favor blurs the line dividing “us” from “them.” When everyone becomes the enemy, the boundary of conflict ceases to reflect a recognizable structure of power or ideology.
Moral Authority Collapse
Populism’s claim to legitimacy rests less on procedural correctness than on moral representation. This is why personal conduct, symbolic gestures, and claims to authenticity carry unusual weight in populist politics. The leader does not merely speak for the people; he is also the self-proclaimed embodiment of their moral will. His authority rests on the perception that he stands apart from, even superior to, the decadent, self-interested, and out-of-touch elite.
Here, too, Trump’s current position marks a subtle departure. Granted, presiding over the wealthiest cabinet in the country’s history might seem like the obvious reason why his movement’s identification with ordinary Americans would appear less persuasive this second time around. Yet it is not simply the pairing of resentment toward entrenched privilege with unprecedented concentrations of private wealth at the top of government that strains Trump’s populist claims in his second term. Trump’s rhetoric was never built on a straightforward opposition to wealth or business success; from the outset, he cast himself as proof that private-sector achievement could serve the national interest. Nor is it the continued proximity to affluence and power that makes the moral asymmetry between “the people” and “the elite” harder to sustain. Rather, it is the persistent controversies surrounding his conduct, governance style, and use of state power that steadily shift attention from elite betrayal to the legitimacy of the leader himself.
More damaging still for a moralized populist claim are renewed questions surrounding Trump’s, and several members of his administration’s, alleged entanglement in the so-called Epstein files — an issue that resurfaced prominently during his election campaign, when denunciations of elite corruption and hidden networks formed the backbone of his political messaging. The controversy has since evolved into a broader political liability, intersecting with public opinion, intra-party tensions, and enduring anxieties about elite impunity.
For a movement premised on exposing and dismantling entrenched links of power, even perceived proximity to one of the most notorious elite scandals of recent decades is symbolically corrosive. Regardless of legal outcomes, such associations erode the contrast on which populist legitimacy depends. When populism promises to drain the swamp, proximity to the swamp becomes politically existential rather than merely reputational.
A distinct but complementary challenge arises when Trump confronts external moral authorities. Pope Francis’s open letter to U.S. bishops in February 2025 illustrates this tension by emphasizing protection, solidarity, and dignity in implicit contrast to the force-first logic surrounding Trump’s leadership. The message is reinforced by Pope Leo, the first American pontiff, whose early remarks on migration and diplomacy-based restraint, as well as his reported refusal to associate the papacy with Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace,” underscore the widening gap between populist moral claims and universalist religious authority.
These interventions matter because they contest populism on its own terrain: morality. Where populism asserts exclusive ethical insight into the will of the people, an external ethical authority advances a rival claim grounded in humanity rather than nation, empathy rather than domination. The Trump administration may try to respond to such criticism in a dismissive register, framing interventions by institutional or transnational actors as out-of-touch moralizing, but moral authority, once projected outward against elites, still becomes inwardly contested. The leader may remain defiant, but the symbolic coherence of moral representation, the belief that he uniquely embodies the people’s virtue, grows ever more fragile.
People Erosion
Arguably, the most consequential development lies not in Trump’s expanding list of enemies or the mounting strain on his moral authority, but in the visible fragmentation of the very constituency he claims to embody. Trump may continue to invoke “the people,” yet public opinion progressively resists this construction. Approval ratings remain stubbornly below majority support. Although populism does not equate legitimacy with procedural majoritarianism, sustained net disapproval complicates any credible assertion that he represents a unified national will.
Furthermore, Trump now governs amid widening fractures within his own political base. High-profile clashes with former allies — above all Elon Musk, once cultivated as a symbol of entrepreneurial defiance — reveal competing currents within the broader right-wing coalition. Public feuds with Marjorie Taylor Greene, long among his most loyal MAGA allies, as well as with influential conservative commentators such as Joe Rogan and Tim Pool, further suggest that movement cohesion is far from assured. Across the right-wing media ecosystem, disagreements over strategy, policy, and priorities now puncture the image of monolithic support that once underpinned the coalition.
These ruptures matter not merely as elite infighting because, while populist legitimacy does not require overwhelming majority support, it does require symbolic coherence. These prominent insiders play a crucial role in articulating and policing the boundaries of “the people.” When they splinter, competing interpretations of who constitutes the authentic community begin to surface. Such multiplication of claims does not expand the people so much as destabilize its defining lines. Populism, a political logic premised on singularity, is inherently intolerant to internal pluralization. Faced with dissent from within the purported popular camp, its response is rarely accommodation. Instead, it is bound to recode critics as insufficiently suborned, misled, or co-opted, thereby contracting the category of “the people” as internal disagreement grows and replacing loyalty with representation as the primary criterion of belonging. The result is a paradoxical form of a populism that insists on exclusive representation while presiding over the gradual disintegration of the collective it claims to embody.
Most destabilizing, perhaps, is the backlash over immigration enforcement actions that unsettled even parts of Trump’s own coalition, contributing to the erosion of the “ordinary people.” The lethal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti during federal operations in Minnesota have intensified scrutiny and sparked protests that extended beyond the administration’s usual critics. What was framed by officials as a decisive campaign against dangerous criminals quickly became politically fraught when the human toll included observers and bystanders, many of them U.S. citizens and legal residents with no criminal record. Reports of a five-year-old child, an elderly man, and a disabled woman caught up in these actions underscored that they were not confined to “outsiders” but touched everyday, vulnerable individuals who resemble broad swaths of the public.
For a movement built on protecting “the people” from external danger, enforcement that appears indiscriminate complicates the moral clarity on which populist legitimacy depends. The White House asserts strong public support for deporting criminal undocumented migrants and for local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Yet other polling on rising skepticism toward certain ICE tactics, closely divided views on its abolishment, and broader unease following controversial cases reveal ambivalence. These tensions do not amount to wholesale rejection, but they do undermine the narrative of an unambiguous mandate on one of the most salient topics of the past year.
In the eyes of many, these controversial enforcement actions blur the boundary between those portrayed as threats and the wider citizenry. Instead of signaling strength, they evoke vulnerability and a sense of arbitrariness, exposing fractures in the shared sense of “us” the populist claims to defend.
These two dynamics — erosion from within and erosion from without — converge in a shared unraveling. Internal fragmentation unsettles who “the people” are, while policy backlash destabilizes the protective narrative, forcing a more restrictive definition of who belongs. The claim to exclusive representation persists, but the coherence that once made it plausible grows increasingly difficult to maintain. What remains is conflict without clear representation: antagonism endures, but the unity it presupposes becomes harder to locate.
The Afterlife
In his second term, Trump’s populism did not vanish. Nor did it simply radicalize along familiar lines. Instead, it entered a strange afterlife: a mode of politics that retains populism’s theatrical intensity while shedding many of its structural foundations.
The enemies multiplied. The moral contrast collapsed. The people thinned.
As a result, what was once a textbook case of populism has stretched, distorted, and grown untethered from its original logic. It no longer constructs a bounded antagonism between a virtuous but silenced majority and a corrupt, self-serving minority. Instead, it organizes politics around the personalization of grievance, dramatization of hostility, and a posture of perpetual siege. Legitimacy flows not from majority approval, not even from the symbolic unity of a popular base, but from the constant orchestration of conflict and the personalization of opposition. The promise to correct elite domination fades away, while confrontation is increasingly staged as an end in itself. Crisis ceases to be a means of transformation and becomes a mechanism to reproduce and exploit.
Trump’s trajectory illustrates that populism in power, especially once it outlives its moment of insurgent mobilization, exhausts the very binary that animates it. It collapses into a politics of antagonism without representation.
In this afterlife, populism shifts from ideology to posture. What remains is not “the people versus the elite,” but a politics in which the leader stands in mounting isolation, facing an ever-expanding world of “them” —adversaries, some real, some improvised, all necessary to sustain the performance.
The author wishes to thank Deborah Martinez and Konstantin Kipp for their insightful comments and perceptive feedback on earlier drafts of this essay.
Ece Özbey serves as Co-Managing Editor of the Review of Democracy. She is a doctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Cologne, where she is pursuing her PhD in Comparative Politics. Her research examines populism, democratic erosion, and the changing dynamics of political competition, with a regional focus on European politics.
This article is published under the sole responsibility of the author, with editorial oversight. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the CEU Democracy Institute.
