Back by Populist Demand? Trump, the Power of Performance and the Performance of Power

After Donald Trump’s election in 2016, many scholars and political commentators expressed shock and dismay, often casting a critical eye on the American electorate itself. The 2020 victory of Joe Biden was widely interpreted as a corrective to Trump’s presidency—a return to political normalcy both domestically and internationally, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout most of Biden’s term, the prevailing view among analysts was that the Trump era had been an aberration—an electoral anomaly destined to fade amid a growing list of legal troubles, congressional investigations, and the televised inquiry into the January 6th Capitol attack. It was expected that Trump’s political narrative would end not with a whimper, but with the clang of prison doors. And yet, his re-emergence and electoral triumph in 2024 confounded those expectations. To understand the persistent and evolving appeal of Trump—and to make sense of his renewed political success—I examine the power of his performances and his performances of power across multiple arenas: in courtrooms, on social media, during televised interviews, and throughout the campaign trail.