Is Donald Trump actually a Republican?
Graphic of current Republican President Donald Trump next to various former Republican presidents (The Puma Prensa / Ruby Costa)
By Ruby Costa, Co-Executive Editor
I’ve always thought that the names of the Democrat and Republican party were slightly misleading. The United States is a democratic republic, and people often confuse Republican, as in the party, with republic, the form of government. No matter your party affiliation, both Democrats and Republicans serve the republic and live in a democratic country.
Perhaps the older political parties of America had more intuitive names. Federalists and Anti-Federalists, back when the Articles of Confederation had just been thrown out and the Constitution was still fresh, had very clear differences and were very comprehensible. Now, it is much less simple. The values of Republicans and Democrats change with the generations, but there are still certain core values that differentiate them.
The hot topic of debate in today’s political climate is whether or not current U.S. President Donald J. Trump is actually as loyal to the Republican party as he claims to be.
Traditionally, Republicans have more conservative social views. They oppose gay rights, legalizing abortion, and providing universal healthcare. On the other hand, they support capital punishment and loose gun control laws.
Many Republican values align with traditional Christian values. Despite this, messages from the Bible in relation to politics are often cherry picked and can be contradictory; this often happens due to “open interpretation” of Bible verses.
Economically, the Republican party supports a “flat tax,” meaning equal taxes regardless of income. Many Republicans in the past have supported immigration due to how it supports our economy, like former president Ronald Reagen. Furthermore, both Democrats and Republicans have always maintained positive foreign relations with Western Europe and have remained anti-Soviet, now Russian, especially in the times surrounding the Cold War.
Overall, Republicans support individual rights, and believe that the rights given by the Constitution (such as the right to bear arms) should not be taken away in any circumstances.
It's almost startling how far Trump and his “Make America Great Again” cult have strayed from these ideals.
Most concerning, at least to me, is the complete bias and prejudice clouding the Trump administration. MAGA Republicans certainly do believe people are entitled to their rights, but only if those people are straight, rich, white Christians. Can this even be considered protection if it is so exclusive? In the 2024 election, a whopping 78% of Trump’s voters were white, as it is defined by the US Census Bureau, and this statistic speaks far louder than any contradicting statement Trump may try to make (Pew Research Center).
Trump also differs on many technical accounts. He does not endorse a flat tax, and instead favors the tax plan laid out in his “Big Beautiful Bill:” a tax increase for “those making $30,000 a year or less” and a $309,000 tax cut for “the top 0.1 percent” (Governor Gavin Newsom). He is also strongly opposed to immigration, and has enforced more restrictive immigration policies than most presidents in the past. He, like many others in his party, believes that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country [America]"–which holds horrific similarity to statements used by Adolf Hitler to rally anti-Jewish support in Germany–and believes that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes in America compared to citizens born here, despite studies that show the complete opposite. This rhetoric is clearly not taking into account how crucial immigrants are for the American economy, or how America has always been praised for being a so-called “melting pot”.
Another concerning aspect of the Trump administration is America’s foreign relations. At the 2025 UN General Assembly this September, Trump harshly criticized Western European leaders on their policies, and threatened the countries that didn’t agree to increase their defense spending with high tariffs. Trump’s current “trade war”–an economic conflict involving back and forth tariffs–with China has already produced high tariffs on the Eastern Asian country.
Western Europe has always been America's greatest ally. If a war involving the US were to break out, we would absolutely need our Western European allies to rely on, and publicly bashing them in a speech is not a great way to maintain positive relations. Trump’s intimate relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin also raises many concerns from both Americans and third parties. Since the Cold War, America and Russia have had tension beyond belief, but Trump’s first term seemingly turned this around. Within the last few months, however, Trump has expressed frustration with Putin over the war in Ukraine. Despite this, Trump and Putin’s relationship still exists, and it could be very dangerous for a country like America to have such close ties with Russia, a country known for its suppression of individual rights and freedoms.
Sure, Trump does embody some Republican policies to a T, but it is important to see the similarities between these specific examples. Trump is against gay rights, legalizing abortion, and universal healthcare. He supports the death penalty, is strongly opposed to gun control laws or the outright banning of guns, and is a firm supporter of “faith over facts.” He believes faith, specifically Christian faith, is what makes up the American identity. If you look at this claim for just a moment longer, however, you can see how this could simply be a tool to appeal to religious Americans and gain more supporters.
The important note that goes along with these topics is that, for the most part, they are social. Trump can discriminate against queer people, women, or immigrants as much as he’d like, but it is not clear exactly how this will help our nation. From what I, and undoubtedly many other Americans, have seen online, all this has done is make America seem all the more uninviting to people from other countries. Many people in America are not happy either, and I know that I am not alone when I say there are far bigger issues in our country than two men in a loving, consenting relationship getting married.
Trump’s foreign, economic, diplomatic, and social policies are all on one extreme end of the political scale. With communists and “we need not be governed” preachers on the far left, Trump and his followers occupy the opposite side. With them sits the dictators, authoritarian conservatives, and Nazis. Sure, Republicans are somewhere nearby, but Trump’s political views can better be described as fascist: “a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition” (Merriam Webster).
Whether or not Trump is classified as a fascist is a major topic of debate, but a concerning amount of signs point to yes.
For starters, Trump has been very upfront about his views on race. Fascism is often accompanied by white supremacy, or at least some form of racial superiority, and many of Trump's public statements and policies reflect these sorts of views. A recent example of this is the deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in areas known to have significant Latinx populations. He has allowed them to detain people simply for speaking Spanish, though this seems like a nonsensical decision considering over 70% of American students take Spanish classes in high school. He has also publicly spread blatant stereotypes, like in the very speech that launched his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump described Mexican immigrants as criminal and dangerous, saying that "they're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists." He has, since then, consistently pushed the agenda that Latinx immigrants were “bad” for America.
Back in the 2010s, he was also a pioneer of the offensive suspicion that former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States, which had, undoubtedly, come up because of his race.
Trump has also, especially within recent months, begun cracking down on criticism of his presidency and the Republican party as a whole. In other words, he has begun to show “severe economic and social regimentation…by forcible suppression of opposition,” or at least shown interest in such.
The well known situation with Jimmy Kimmel–where his late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended from September 17 to 22 due to conservative criticism–was a blatant attack on freedom of speech in America. The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) suspended Kimmel’s show because of pressure from the Trump administration, but talk shows have always been protected by freedom of speech, and it is not within a president's right to suspend one simply because they speak negatively of them or their policies. Simply put, the president cannot do that. And, technically, he didn’t. It was still ABC, and its parent company, Walt Disney Company, that officially suspended the show at the end of the day. But it is no secret why, especially because the segment that got Kimmel’s show suspended was mocking MAGA reactions to conservative activist Charlie Kirk's death, something that Trump directly disagreed with.
Trump has also banned and attempted to sue many news organizations that go against his conservative views, like The New York Times. Does the restriction of freedom of press sound familiar?
Facism and conservative republicanism cannot go together because, at the end of the day, even a conservative republican is loyal to the country. And, at least on paper, America is a republic. In a republic, the power is held by the people. Every single ounce of American ideology goes against the concept of a monarch or dictator, but facism cannot live without a dictatorial leader as its host.
Donald Trump is not the only example of this political extremism. In fact, he is just a symptom of the much larger illness of political polarization.
Why do things have to be so black and white? Politics should have room for compromises and inbetweens, for moderate presidents and third party politicians in high roles of power. But that just does not seem to be realistic in the political climate of modern day America. Trump’s extreme far-right ideologies are nothing new, but as we can see in countries like Germany and Italy, these reigns do not last forever. Governments come and go, and eventually, even the most oppressive of regimes get replaced.
When will it be America’s turn?