Opinion | Trumpism After Trump? Here Are Three Realities.

Trumpism without Trump is going to move in different directions, because Trumpism was always a somewhat amorphous set of half-baked ideas connected to a singularly charismatic — in my view, odious but odiously charismatic — figure. I think one side of it is the JD Vance version: much more isolationist, truculent, illiberal in many of its core instincts. Another side of it could be a quasi-restoration of what we used to call normie Republicanism — you mentioned Marco Rubio — combined with a slightly more populist tinge, but a return to the Republican Party that we used to know. A third aspect of it, a third possible direction and the one that terrifies me most, is the one that’s embodied by Tucker Carlson and the more aggressively bigoted, antisemitic, wildly illiberal streak that looks like an American version of the AfD party from Germany or other very far-right-wing parties in Europe that kind of openly incorporate and celebrate fascistic elements in their core thinking. So one of those three futures is possible. In fact, all three futures are possible.