'Owning the libs': how Trump Jr became his father's unlikely political heir apparent
Donald Trump Jr stood on the flatbed of an 18-wheel truck at rodeo grounds in Williams, Arizona, and made his father’s re-election pitch to a seemingly unlikely audience: Native Americans.The US president’s campaign claims he has been the “fiercest ally” of the Native American community. Don Jr was here on 15 October to launch the “Native Americans for Trump” coalition drawn from the Navajo, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Lumbee, Zuni and White Mountain Apache tribes.But Don Jr, 42, had also come to bash Democrats. “They pander,” he said, according to the Arizona Daily Sun newspaper. “They tell you everything you want to hear and do exactly the opposite. They lie to you for years – you guys understand that better than everyone.”Don Jr’s Twitter feed offers his 5.8m followers little by way of policy but a torrent of Democrat-baiting and conspiracy theoriesIt was one of numerous campaign stops for Trump’s eldest son, seen by many as the heir apparent to the “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Like his father, Don Jr delivers fiery populist speeches, tweets conspiracy theories and, above all, relishes goading, shocking and outraging liberals on air and online. Like his father, he has come to personify modern Republicanism.And as Trump continues to trail his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, in the polls, attention has turned to who may take up his mantle after November.“Trumpism replaced conservatism as the ideological underpinning of the Republican party and, because of that, they don’t really fight about issues any more,” said Rick Wilson, a longtime Republican strategist co-founder of the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project.“They fight about affect and whether or not they’re winning these ephemeral social media battles and, in that world, the highest order goal is the ‘owning of the libs’. It is a throwaway phrase substituting the validity or strength of an argument with a sort of self-satisfaction that you have been transgressive in some way towards liberals or progressives.”Wilson added: “Donald Trump Jr is a master of that. He is a post-Republican Republican. He is there only to engage in that performative dickery that is lib owning in the Trump world. It is a political performance art to show your contempt for norms, institutions and education.“It has become the ideological underpinning of the GOP [Grand Old Party, or Republican party]. There’s no party of ideas any longer. There’s no there there except for sort of the screeching fury of Trumpism.”After spending some years finding his path, including a stint as a “ski bum”, Don Jr has followed in his father’s footsteps. He is a graduate of his father’s alma mater, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and went into the family business. He is now an executive vice-president at the Trump Organization and a leading campaign surrogate for the president. More
