This Is the Trump 2.0 Aesthetic
Over the past few days, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this TikTok I watched over the weekend. In it, fashion influencer Elysia Berman claims that the foundations of a second Trump presidency have been laid for a long time, citing the quiet luxury, conformity, and old money trends dominating the lifestyle industry.
She points to this style resurgence as an indicator that people, herself included, should have seen a Trump win coming.
Look to the return of Ralph Lauren, Berman suggests. Or the aestheticization of Catholicism and the farm-to-table-to-Instagram-grid “tradwife.” These trends creeped out from the more fringe parts of the internet during the first Trump administration, and have since been legitimized and become more dominant in contemporary culture.
“I think a lot of people are gonna start dressing a lot more conservatively,” Berman says.
Trump’s successful influencer and pod bro campaign spoke to young men, and created a new style of fandom for him online. But it also seems like a new aesthetic of Trump 2.0 has emerged too.
It’s not your average politics newsletter. Makena Kelly and the WIRED Politics team help you make sense of how the internet is shaping our political reality.
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