We tend to fall back on "first principles" in times of need.
Based purely on observable patterns across both terms, here's what Trump's actions reveal as his actual operating first principles, regardless of stated ideology:
Loyalty (to him) over institution. The first filter on any decision appears to be: does this person/entity support me personally? Institutions, alliances, and norms get subordinated to this question every time.
Transactionalism as worldview. Everything is a deal. Relationships, treaties, alliances, even domestic policy are evaluated as exchanges with winners and losers. There is no inherent value to a standing arrangement -- only its current leverage.
Were one to apply the principles of stoicism to Donald Trump, he would likely, simply, implode.
Judged against the Stoic standard he claims by temperament to embody, Trump's public conduct suggests someone poorly suited to the discipline that high office arguably demands: real Stoic composure treats provocation as beneath response and status-seeking as a category error, while his approach runs the opposite way, treating every insult as a demand for retaliation and every metric of attention, ratings, crowds, coverage, as something to be won.
A leader modeled on Marcus Aurelius absorbs pressure without needing the outside world to validate him; the pattern here is a public figure whose equilibrium seems to depend on winning the news cycle in front of him. Whether that's disqualifying is a judgment call, but it's hard to square with the specific virtue of imperturbability that Stoicism holds up as fitness to govern.
But Trump is emotionally just a petulant child, in a man-suit.
Strength-dominance signaling. Perceived weakness is the cardinal sin. This shapes rhetoric, negotiating posture, and personnel decisions. Concession reads as loss regardless of strategic gain.
Unpredictability as a tool. Consistency is a vulnerability others can exploit. Keeping adversaries (and allies) off-balance is a feature, not a bug.
Grievance as fuel. He returns to perceived slights and injustices reliably when under pressure. It's not just rhetoric -- it appears to be a genuine motivational engine that organizes his political coalition and his own decision-making.
Zero-sum framing. For someone else to win, he must lose. This underlies his approach to trade, immigration, international relations, and domestic politics alike.
Media reality as actual reality. Coverage, perception, and the narrative surrounding events carries more operational weight in his decisions than underlying policy outcomes.
The interesting thing about these as first principles is that they are largely pre-ideological. They explain why his actual policy outputs don't map cleanly onto traditional conservatism. The ideology is downstream of the principles, not the other way around.
Then what are they labeled as?
Western political vocabulary was built around parties, platforms, and ideologies. A system built around a person resists those categories almost by design -- which is part of what makes it durable and destabilizing at the same time.
Populism" is the most common reach, but it's descriptive of the audience relationship, not the underlying logic. It tells you about the coalition, not the operating system.
"Nationalism," "Authoritarianism," "Caesarism?"
This is why his supporters and opponents both keep getting confused.
Supporters expect ideological consistency and get surprised when he pivots.
Opponents expect rational policy opposition and get surprised when he doesn't care about winning the argument, only about winning the room.
In most coherent political traditions, first principles are foundational beliefs about human nature and the purpose of government that everything else derives from. A few examples:
Classical Conservatism (Burke) Human nature is flawed and improvable only slowly. Institutions encode accumulated wisdom. Change is dangerous. Order and continuity have intrinsic value. Everything downstream -- deference to tradition, skepticism of reform -- follows from those.
Classical Liberalism (Locke, Mill) Individuals have inherent rights prior to government. Liberty is the default condition. Government exists to protect rights, not grant them. Everything downstream -- rule of law, limits on state power, free expression -- follows from those.
Socialism / Social Democracy (Marx, various) Economic relations determine social reality. Capital accumulation creates structural exploitation. Collective ownership or regulation corrects inherent market injustice. Policy follows from the diagnosis of where power actually lives.
Libertarianism Coercion is the fundamental wrong. Voluntary exchange is the fundamental right. The state is legitimate only to the degree it prevents coercion. Everything else follows with unusual logical consistency from just those two premises.
Theocratic / Natural Law traditions Moral order is objective and externally grounded, usually in God or natural law. Legitimate government reflects that order. Human law is valid only when it conforms.
What these share is that the principles are about something outside the leader. They describe the world, human nature, or moral reality -- and the leader is supposed to be an instrument of those principles, not the source of them.
That's the structural difference with what Trump represents. There's no external referent. Which is exactly why "personalist" keeps being the most accurate term.
This is what I have referred to for decades as "Corporate Thought." Loyalty only to the buck, the dollar, profit, the board, the bottom line. Ethics, morality, decency, get in the way. For a while corporations realized there needs to be more.
But Trump is stuck in the 1980s, before that realization came into corporate reality, or popularity.
This was a backslide. We can and will do better going forward. Once this ethical toxic mold has been exorcised off the ledger of America.
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
JZ Murdock is a retired Senior Technical Writer/IT administrator, and an active award-winning author/ filmmaker, documentarian, and writer based in Bremerton, Washington.
He publishes commentary on the state of things at murdockinations.com and on his creative works over at Substack. He also posts on Slasher.com on the horror genre.
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