Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Donald Trump didn’t break American politics — he’s just the most grotesque culmination of a decay that began decades ago, with Richard Nixon laying the groundwork and Ronald Reagan cementing the rot. Trump is a product, not an aberration. His rise makes perfect sense when you trace the lineage of political cynicism, racial dog-whistling, corporate servitude, and the weaponization of grievance that took root with Nixon and blossomed under Reagan.

Nixon pioneered the “Southern Strategy” — a calculated appeal to white resentment in response to civil rights gains. He institutionalized the idea that racial division was a winning tactic, packaging it in coded language about “law and order.” Meanwhile, the Watergate scandal revealed a president who viewed the office as a tool for personal power, one who believed rules were for suckers and accountability was optional. Sound familiar?

Then came Reagan, the actor-turned-politician who sold a Hollywood fantasy of America while gutting unions, deregulating everything in sight, and slashing social programs — all while ballooning the deficit and feeding the rich. His genial smile masked a ruthless agenda that elevated greed to gospel and painted government not as a force for good, but as the enemy. The era of “trickle-down” economics began not just a redistribution of wealth upward, but a moral restructuring of the nation. He also helped mainstream the notion that facts were flexible, media could be manipulated, and charisma could outweigh substance.

Trump inherited this legacy and stripped it of all pretense. He didn’t invent racism, corruption, or contempt for democratic norms — he just broadcast them on social media in all-caps. Where Nixon used back channels, Trump used Twitter. Where Reagan coated cruelty in optimism, Trump reveled in it. He is the id of the modern conservative movement, made flesh.

If Nixon planted the seed and Reagan nurtured it, Trump is the bitter fruit. The American right didn’t accidentally stumble into Trumpism — they spent half a century cultivating it.