The president's embrace of the word nationalism tonight is a marker, the culmination of many years of resisting the label, which he at first saw as a Bannon/Breitbart thing and a loaded, far right label that was an odd fit for a combative NY ex-Dem turned immigration hawk...
Trump used to wave me off in 2015-16 whenever I'd bring up the term "nationalism" or "populism." He hated them. Told me Trump the brand was bigger than those words and about "common sense." Never wanted to talk ideology... see this Aug. 2015 intvw, for ex. washingtonpost.com/news/post-poli…
But it became clear over time that Trump's aversion to "nationalism" and "populism" wasn't an aversion to those *ideas* and what fueled them, but to the *people* associated w/ them. Identity-wise, he didn't want to be see as a Bannonite, a Buchananite, or part of a movement.
What Trump did tonight is finally finish the rhetorical journey. He acknowledged what he's been the whole time: a nationalist, one of many in the world. He frames politics in transactional and deeply nationalistic terms, focused on perceived threats to his concept of the nation.
