Mollan and Geesin article argue that Trump’s political legitimacy was not built on his actual business performance but on the narrative constructed around it. His career provided the foundational legitimacy for an emerging political ideology they call Trumpism.
The article, published in the journal Organization, uses Trump as a case study to examine how leadership is discursively constructed, how celebrity creates authority, and how business narratives can become political ideology.
Firstly, the article claims how a zero-sum worldview defined Trump’s business approach and translated directly into political ideology. It reveals how The Apprentice created parasocial bonds that survived his actual business failures. It shows how brand over substance became a governing philosophy—risk transfer, value extraction, and narrative control repurposed as political strategy.
Secondly, it is argued that Trump’s celebrity via The Apprentice created parasocial bonds with viewers. The public formed a relationship with a fictionalized Trump—the decisive arbiter—that survived his actual business failures.
Finally, it is discussed that the combination of celebrity, narrative, and ideology made Trumpism emotionally resonant and politically viable.
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Mollan and Geesin argue that the answer to Trump’s electoral success lies not in his actual business performance but in the narrative constructed around it. Trump’s business career, as selectively told and media-amplified, provided foundational legitimacy for an emerging political ideology they call Trumpism. Understanding how that narrative was built requires insights from management and organization studies: how leadership is discursively constructed, how celebrity creates authority, and how institutional change can be driven by stories rather than substance.
Mollan and Geesin divide Trump’s career into three phases. The first, lasting from the early 1970s through the 1980s, established the pattern: seeking advantage in economic decline, extracting value through tax breaks and subsidies, and transferring risk to counterparties.
Trump played the city, sellers, and hotel chain against each other. He assured Penn Central he had a deal with Hyatt when he had no such thing—and secured the property.
Loaded with high-interest debt, they proved unprofitable. Trump owed $3.2B by 1990. Banks restructured. Trump survived; shareholders lost $1.5B.
Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote The Art of the Deal, later observed: “To survive, I concluded from our conversations, Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear, or you succumbed to it.”
The Apprentice (and later Celebrity Apprentice) cemented Trump’s public image as a rich and decisive business leader. His media persona was “decidedly presidential”: he alone decided who stayed or went, his decisions were always right within the show’s narrative, and he made them fairly and quickly.
“The image I created through the media enabled me to build one of the greatest luxury brands in the world,” Trump later wrote. Risk transfer, value extraction, brand over substance—these were not failures to be hidden. They were features to be marketed.
Mollan and Geesin argue that Trumpism required three ingredients: (1) Trump’s narrated business career, (2) the integration of previously marginal right-wing ideas into mainstream discourse, and (3) a populist rhetoric that made the combination coherent and emotionally resonant. The key figure in this synthesis was Steve Bannon.
Pseudo-historical “generational theory” predicting a “crisis of 2020″—a severe social cataclysm that would be “the pivotal moment” for all generations.
Deeply racist 1973 French novel depicting Europe overrun by non-white immigrants. Bannon repeatedly cited it.
The authors identify several interconnected explanations for Trump’s appeal, while acknowledging the relationship between them remains an open question.
The authors raise the possibility that dysfunction may be partly strategic. The chaos surrounding the 2017 immigration ban was intentionally provoked by Bannon and Miller to inflame protests. The longest federal shutdown was “a means to an end”—a way to shrink the federal government. The traditional metrics of governance may not apply to an administration that deploys incompetence as strategy.
Mollan and Geesin leave several important questions open—invitations for further inquiry.
- Is Trumpism a lasting realignment? Or a temporary aberration? The answer is unresolved.
- What does this say about business credibility and political authority? Trump has shown that competence can be entirely manufactured. The narrative, not the record, is what matters.
- How should scholars evaluate an administration that uses “trolling” as a governing tactic? Traditional frameworks assume competence is a prerequisite for authority. Trump has demonstrated it is not.