When we hear the term barn burner (also barnburner), most think of an exciting event, usually a competitive sport. We assign the term to the most thrilling, intense, and captivating activities. The television sports commentator said the recent men’s NCAA championship game “was a barn burner.” However, we can also assign it to other events. For example, the recent release of the movie Minecraft resulted in groups of young, uncontrolled boys becoming so excited that they ripped out the chairs, threw the carbonated drinks into the air, sprayed lotion all over the place, and caused a SWAT team to come to the movie theater.
The term barn burner (or “barnburner”) originated in New York during the 1840s when Democrats in favor of placating the Southern plantation owners characterized any opposition to the expansion of slavery in a negative light. These Southern sympathizers wanted everyone to think that the “Free Soilers” (those who did not wish to have slavery in the new territories in the West) were extremists and a little crazy. The term originated from an apocryphal Dutch farmer who set fire to his barn to eliminate a rat infestation. The idea was that barnburners would destroy important buildings or institutions to root out corruption or problems.
Does this sound familiar?
In the 1840s, Northern Democrats faced an increasing dilemma. They wished to remain in control of the national government, but they were experiencing pressure from Northern Abolitionists to curtail, if not eliminate, slavery. The conservative Democrats needed to establish complex coalitions with Southern and Western states. To force the New York Abolitionists to align with the Northern Democrats and the Southern sympathizers, the Abolitionists were called “Barnburners” because they were said to be willing to destroy the existing system to achieve their goals. This is similar to those opposed to Trump’s MAGA worldview in the Republican Party, who were called RINOs. If you cannot make opponents shut up, give them a nasty name.
The nasty name-calling and differing positions caused the Barnburners to leave the Democratic Party and join the Free Soil Party in 1848.
The Barnburner-in-Chief in 2025 is Donald J. Trump. It is abundantly clear that he intends to destroy virtually every existing political, economic, social, and cultural institution…not figuratively but literally. His view of America is that there are rats (immigrants, foreign goods, and Liberals) who, like vermin, have infested the USA. His standard stump speech includes phrases like, “Rapists and criminals are invading America.” While undoubtedly a few bad hombres arrive, the vast majority of visitors are not rapists and criminals.
Instead of favoring a progressive political agenda, like the Free Soilers in the 1840s, Trump implicitly converts the term Barn Burner to mean that he wants America to return to the 1800s by burning down most of our 21st-century institutions.
It will be interesting to see if the oligarchs, his MAGA faithful, and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate feel the heat as their barns burn to the ground.
However, Trump is achieving his primary goal of never being boring. At the heart of Barn Burning is excitement. Like the country band, the Barn Burners, Trump’s blowtorches get everyone’s attention.
Trump promised to protect our economy, our 401Ks, and our way of life. Instead, his 24×7 style of chaos, vanity, excitement, and sensationalism has done the opposite. Like the New York Dutch farmer, he burns the barn to eradicate his real and imagined rats.