Whigs & Tories – and Trump’s Air Force One decoy

Elsewhere I have indicated that Trump has been busy overturning the Lockean tradition in America.  So, Trump, in other words, is no Whig, or liberal.  But let’s not mistake him for a Tory, either.

The key Whig virtue is “keeping one’s word” or “trust” which is the building block of a predictable commercial society, where there are contractual forms of interdependence.[1]  We find the beginnings of this in the Scottish Enlightenment and in the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment generally.  Whig virtue is an expression of rational, constitutional freedom, along with notions of a principled and accountable public life.  Hence: public honesty.  The concept of a National Debt was, consequently, a Whig invention; it was intended to help with obligations to those in despair.

The key Tory virtue, on the other hand, is “loyalty”, one based on landed wealth, for which the idea of a National Debt came to be considered an unbearable burden.  Hereditary rights and hierarchical order are therefore preeminent.  So too is the authority of the patriarch, the central pillar behind Sir Robert Filmer, who, writing in Patriarcha (1680), defended the book of Genesis, the lineage of those descended from Adam, and the importance of an absolute monarchy accountable to no person.

The struggle between Whigs and Tories in America is mirrored in divisions between the North and South, and the American Civil War, which explains why Trump relocated from New York City to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.  It’s a struggle between rational freedom and personal loyalty, or at least it was.

Here’s the kicker: while Trump certainly does not engender Whig “trust”, he can no longer command Tory “loyalty”.  Trump’s Air Force One scandal, when he secretly switched planes to avoid an apparent threat by vengeful Iranians – only to leave in the decoy plane members of his own  Cabinet (Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent) as well as members of the media  - can only introduce doubt among the indoctrinated.  This story became public on 10 August.  This is quite possibly why White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced her resignation two days following, on 12 August. 

It also reminds us of Trump’s attitude towards his own former Vice President, Mike Pence, at the time of the January insurrection against Congress  in 2021.  Mike Pence was expendable then.  So, too, are Rubio and Bessent today.  One can only speculate as to why these two men in particular could be sacrificed while Pete Hegseth, apparently, travelled along with Trump.

Anglo-Saxon Tory “loyalty” was sometimes considered on a par with Asiatic cultures – notably India and China, each with a recognizable tradition of hierarchy and patriarchy.[2]  I suspect, however, that there is a difference in terms of degree.   Trump has pushed the boundaries of Anglo-Saxon “loyalty” with his Air Force One decoy.  He has instead clearly entered the realm of despotism, the main element of which is “fear”.

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[1] See John W. Burrow, “Henry Maine and mid-Victorian ideas of progress” in Alan Diamond, The Victorian Achievement of Sir Henry Maine: A Centennial Reappraisal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 57.  See also John W. Burrow, A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 77.

[2] John W. Burrow in The Victorian Achievements of Sir Henry Maine, p. 57.