Don’t call Trump a populist

His actions show utter disregard for working Americans

Message to those in the news media who call Donald Trump a “populist”: I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Yes, Mr. Trump poses as someone who champions the interests of working Americans against those of the elite. And there’s a sense in which his embrace of white nationalism gives voice to ordinary Americans who share his racism but have felt unable to air their prejudice in public.

Buthe’s been in office long enough to be judged on what he does, not what he says. And his administration has been relentlessly antiworker on every front. Mr. Trump is about as populist as he is godly — that is, not at all.

Mr. Trump’s major legislative achievement is a tax cut that mainly benefits corporations — whose tax payments have fallen off a cliff — and has done nothing to raise wages. The tax plan does so little for ordinary Americans that Republicans have stopped campaigning on it. Yet the administration is floating the (probably illegal) idea of using executive action to cut taxes on the rich by an extra $100 billion.

There’s also health policy, where Mr. Trump, having failed to repeal Obamacare — which would have been a huge blow to working families— has engaged instead in a campaign of sabotage that has probably raised premiums by almost 20 percent relative to what they would have been otherwise. Inevitably, the burden of these higher premiums falls most heavily on families earning just a bit too much to be eligible for subsidies, that is, the upper part of the working class.

Then there’s labor policy, where the Trump administration has moved to do away with regulations that protect workers from exploitation, injury and more.

Let’s also look at Mr. Trump’s appointments. Almost every important position has gone to a lobbyist or someone with strong financial connections to industry. Labor interests have received no representation at all.

The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court deserves attention, too. He is radically anti-labor, way to the right of the mainstream and even of most Republicans. The bestknown example is his argument that Sea World shouldn’t face any liability after a captive killer whale killed one of its workers, because the victim should have known the risks. But his anti-labor-record goes on and on.

Why would Mr. Trump, the self-proclaimed champion of American workers, choose someone like that? Why would he do all the things he’s doing to hurt the very people who sent him to the White House?

I don’t think that Mr. Trump was unwittingly captured by GOP orthodoxy — even though he is supremely ignorant about policy details. He seems to know very well that he’s inflicting punishment on his own base. But he’s a man who likes to humiliate others, in ways great and small. My guess is that he takes pleasure in watching his supporters follow him even as be betrays them.

Sometimes his contempt for his base comes right out into the open. Remember “I love the poorly educated”? Remember his boast that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters?

Whatever his motivations, Mr. Trump in action is the opposite of populist. And no, his trade war doesn’t change that judgment. William McKinley, the quintessential Gilded Age president who defeated a populist challenger, was also a protectionist. Furthermore, the Trumpian trade war is being carried out in a way that produces maximum harm to U.S. workers in return for minimum-benefits.

While Mr. Trump isn’t a populist, he is the most dishonest man ever to hold high office in America. And his claim to stand with working Americans is one of his biggest lies.

Which brings me back to media use of the term “populist.” Using it makes media complicit in his lie — especially in the context of supposedly objective reporting.

Journalists shouldn’t describe Mr. Trump with words that give him credit where it isn’t due. He’s scamming his supporters; don’t help him do it.