How Trump may have more in common with the founders than we might think

To suggest Donald Trump is ideologically aligned with America’s Founding Fathers is to invite outrage from academics, media pundits, and policymakers who have spent years framing Trump as an existential threat to democracy. Yet, this reflexive dismissal reveals more about contemporary mythmaking than historical reality. The truth is far more unsettling: Trump’s political instincts — his skepticism of centralized power, his populist defiance of elite institutions, his transactional nationalism — are deeply rooted in the founders’ vision.

This is not to equate Trump with George Washington or Thomas Jefferson in character or intellect. Rather, it is to acknowledge that the founders were not the enlightened democrats of modern liberal hagiography. They were revolutionaries who distrusted pure democracy, embraced strong executive power when necessary, and saw politics as a contest of interests, not a utopian exercise in consensus. Trump, for all his flaws, operates within this tradition — one that progressive elites have spent decades sanitizing.

The American Revolution was not fought to establish a democracy in the modern sense. The founders feared mob rule as much as monarchical tyranny. James Madison, in “Federalist No. 10,” warned against the “violence of faction,” and designed a constitutional system to temper popular passions. The Electoral College, the Senate’s structure, and property-based voting restrictions were all mechanisms to ensure governance by a propertied elite — men like themselves.

Trump’s skepticism of unchecked majoritarianism mirrors this philosophy. His attacks on the “deep state,” his defiance of bureaucratic gatekeepers, and his willingness to bypass Congress via executive action (a tool Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln also wielded aggressively) reflect the founders’ belief that concentrated power — whether in a king or an administrative elite — must be challenged. When Trump rails against “unelected bureaucrats,” he echoes Jefferson’s warning that “the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

The founders were unapologetic nationalists. Alexander Hamilton’s economic program — protective tariffs, a strong central bank, and federal investment in industry — was designed to ensure American self-sufficiency against British domination. Jefferson, despite his agrarian ideals, embraced the Embargo Act of 1807, a protectionist measure that crippled foreign trade to assert U.S. sovereignty.

Trump’s “America First” agenda — tariffs on China, skepticism of multilateral institutions, and insistence on reciprocal trade — fits squarely within this tradition. His critics dismiss these policies as isolationist or reckless, but they align with the founders’ belief that a nation’s economic independence is inseparable from its political freedom. As Hamilton wrote in “Federalist No. 11,” “The genius of the commercial republics” lies in their ability to “dictate the terms of their own prosperity.”

The founders enshrined free speech not as a polite academic ideal, but as a weapon against entrenched power. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 — passed by Federalists to suppress opposition — were met with fierce resistance from Jefferson and Madison, who argued that a free press was essential to hold government accountable.

Trump’s battles with the media, though cruder in execution, follow the same logic. His attacks on “fake news” can be seen to be less about suppressing dissent than exposing institutional bias — a modern echo of Jefferson’s claim that “the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.” The founders would have recognized Trump’s war on the “establishment press” as a continuation of their own struggles against partisan gatekeepers.

Here lies the most uncomfortable parallel. The founders proclaimed liberty while presiding over a slaveholding republic. They expanded voting rights — but only for white male property owners. Their democracy was always conditional, a privilege for the “right” kind of citizen.

Trump’s rhetoric often embraces this exclusionary impulse — whether in his immigration policies or his nostalgic invocations of a mythic past. But this, too, is part of the founders’ legacy. The Constitution’s three-fifths clause and the Fugitive Slave Act were compromises with white supremacy, just as Trump’s appeals to “law and order” resonate with those who fear demographic change.

The difference is that Trump lacks the founders’ veneer of Enlightenment idealism. Where they couched their contradictions in lofty prose, he states his priorities bluntly — making him a more honest, if less polished, heir to their vision.

Confronting these parallels is not an endorsement of Trump, but a reckoning with America’s origins. The founders were not saints; they were pragmatic revolutionaries who balanced idealism with self-interest. Trump, for all his vulgarity, forces us to see the founders as they were — not as prophets of liberal democracy, but as architects of a system built on tension between liberty and power.

The progressive left’s horror at Trump stems from its belief that American history is a steady march toward inclusion. But this narrative ignores the founders’ own ambivalence about democracy. If we dismiss Trump as an aberration, we miss the deeper truth: He is a product of the very system the founders designed — one that rewards ambition, resists centralized control, and thrives on conflict.

The American Experiment was never a pure democracy. It was a turbulent, often brutal contest over who gets to rule. Trump, with his instinct for disruption and his disdain for polite norms, is a throwback to this raw, unvarnished tradition.

The founders would likely wince at his tweets, but recognize his tactics. They, too, fought dirty when necessary. They, too, prized results over process. And they, too, understood that democracy is not a static ideal, but a battleground — one where power, not virtue, ultimately prevails.

Trump’s critics are right to fear him. But they are wrong to think he is alien to America’s political DNA. He is, in many ways, its most authentic modern expression.

Delgreco Wilson, who formerly taught comparative politics and international relations at Lincoln University, is a political analyst, educator, and advocate whose work centers on empowering Black Americans through a deeper understanding of political strategy.