The Trump Card: Psychohistorical Perspectives on Demagoguery and Conspiracy Thinking (article)

In the last year, virtually all observers agree that American presidential politics has taken a surprising, if not astounding, turn. Anger at “elites” and disgust for the “establishment” has propelled a political outsider who is a charismatic populist nationalist—Donald Trump—and a political independent who is a democratic socialist railing against “Wall Street” and “the top 1%”—Bernie Sanders—to the forefront, leaving a mainstream center-left Democrat—Hillary Clinton—struggling in the polls. Our own emotional

Page 11

reactions should not deter us from the task of a clear-sighted historically-informed understanding of what has occurred.

A billionaire real estate magnate and reality TV celebrity, Donald Trump is known for his braggadocio, charm (for some), grandiosity, simplistic thinking, and bull-dog ferocity in verbally attacking his adversaries. The spectacle of the debate process, which saw him defeat 16 Republican rivals through a strategy of insult and verbal aggressiveness, was surprisingly followed by the vast majority of his previously insulted opponents jettisoning their conservative principles to fall in line to support him. While in part this can be seen as a pragmatic shift to support the “lesser of the evils” against a woman who is viewed as the epitome of “leftism” (and can be explained in terms of an ideology of anti-leftism), it is hard not to notice the play of psychohistorical themes in both this turn of events and the overall rise of a man whose central slogans include “Make America Great Again” and “We’ve got to be tough!”

Much has already been written analyzing the unique and idiosyncratic characteristics of Trump’s personality and political style (for an illuminating psychobiographical sketch see Paul Elovitz, “Reflections on Trump’s Celebrity Politics,” Clio’s Psyche, Vol. 22, No. 4, March 2016). While many of his traits merit scrutiny in themselves (e.g., his subliminal appeal to racism, his outspoken rebellion against “political correctness,” his extravagant narcissism, and his questionable and controversial business practices), there are two that also stand out and invite deeper psychohistorical investigation: his demagoguery and penchant for conspiracy thinking.

The concept of “demagoguery” is one that, although pejorative, ironically has a long pedigree in the classical republican tradition. From Plato’s fear (based on experience) in The Republic (380 BC) that a “towering despot” is likely to arise in a democracy, exploiting the resentments of the people, to both Hamilton and Madison’s distrust of populist leaders, who overthrow republics, having “begun their careers, by paying obsequious court to people…. commencing demagogues and ending tyrants” (Federalist Paper No. 1), the historical pattern of the demagogue has played havoc with the goal of establishing democratic systems based on freedom and the rule of law. Modern European history has been marred with the emergence out of democracy of authoritarian leaders, such as from Napoleon I to Napoleon III in France, who exploited crisis and cha-

Page 12

os to attain despotic power. The dynamic of demagoguery is rooted psychologically in the uncanny ability of certain leaders to emotionally connect, beyond reason, with followers who long for a champion to express their resentment, sense of victimhood, and frustration at “the elites.” A demagogue such as Adolf Hitler was able to both express and inflame the narcissistic rage of aggrieved and ultra-nationalistic Germans after WWI, saying in a speech in 1921, “Then someone has said: ‘Since the Revolution the people has gained “Rights.” The people governs.’ Strange! The people has now been ruling three years and no one has in practice once asked its opinion. Treaties were signed which will hold us down for centuries: and who has signed the treaties? The people? No!” (www.history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111hit1.html. Also, see Heinz Kohut on Nazism in his book Self Psychology and the Humanities, 1980, for an analysis of the role of “narcissistic rage”). 

With Trump there is a similar ability to articulate the resentment of those feeling oppressed by economic and demographic change, those who feel constrained by the reign of “political correctness” and enraged at the “stupidity” of leaders who have negotiated trade treaties which Trump says are “disasters” that “are killing us.” His grandiose claim that he himself embodies the solution for the nation’s problems, while providing few practical specifics, is consistent with the pattern of past demagogues. Each incident of terror increases Trump’s poll standings. Hitler similarly demagogically exploited the fear of terrorism, and in Germany after the Reichstag fire in February 1933 used it to gain emergency powers.

Similarity is not equivalence. If fascism can be defined accurately as an authoritarian, militarist, and leader-centered ultra-nationalism, then Trump has some but not all of the defining characteristics of fascism. It is important to keep in mind that Trump does not espouse overt fascist doctrine nor blatant racism. Yet here it is useful to consider Umberto Eco’s analysis of what he called “Ur-fascism,” a political ethos that can generate variants of fascism which differ in severity and in malevolence. He identifies 14 traits: the cult of tradition, actionism, devaluing of reason and discourse, fear of difference and of “the other,” appeal to a frustrated middle class, obsession with a plot, love of conflict and war, the leader as incarnation of the will of the people, “newspeak” and the prevalence of non-truths, lying, and the spread of propaganda (Umberto Eco, “Ur-Fascism,” NY Review of Books, June 22, 1995).

Page 13

It is hard not to see his resonance with these elements, yet Trump is idiosyncratic, and the term “fascist” does not fit most of his purported policy proposals, his relative social liberalism (in the past), nor his attitude toward war. He embraces an isolationist, “America First” foreign policy, yet combines it with a bellicosity that logically entails significant military intervention (“I will knock the hell out of ISIS!”) and a pugnaciousness (“If someone hits me, I always hit back, twice as hard!”) that is discomfiting to most foreign policy experts. Psychohistorians can point to many examples of how leadership, either erratic or steady-handed, has either caused or averted war in the last 100 years.

A psychohistorical perspective on Trump will note not only the specific policies he advocates but pay close attention to the implicit attitudes that inform his style of leadership and way of thinking. What has been shocking to the American political establishment is the illiberalism of Trump. His readiness to insult and unwillingness to back down (vs. double-down) or apologize represents a radical break with the tradition of civility in American politics, even considering past levels of election year vitriol and the bitter Jefferson-Adams clash of 1800.

In addition to demagoguery, a second theme that helps illuminate the rise of Trump is a penchant for conspiracy thinking. One of Eco’s hallmarks for Ur-fascism, the belief in a plot or conspiracy behind the backs of the people (usually by elites or some nefarious group), emerged in Trump’s candidacy beginning with his 2008 statement arguing that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery making him not truly an American; this continued with his accusing his main Republican rival’s (Ted Cruz) father of involvement in the assassination of Kennedy and alluding to Hillary Clinton’s murdering Vince Foster.

An inordinate tendency to believe in conspiracies is a hallmark of illiberalism and of aversion to complex thought. Immediately after 9/11, the Truther Movement gained popularity, with those unable to accept the preponderance of credible evidence choosing to posit a dark world-changing conspiracy by hidden establishment circles. Any scientific assessment of probable truth gives way to a fervent faith in a pre-fixed explanation that is psychologically satisfying to the believer, but in defiance of facts. Not only Trump’s birtherism, but his advocacy of exclusion of all Muslims from immigration and his insinuation that Obama is secretly in league with the terrorists, clearly flow from a pre-determined fixed

Page 14

and shared notion of an evil group (Muslims in general with the full delusion being that Obama himself is secretly a Muslim) that is an “other” deserving vilification and deep suspicion.

Most psychological explanations for a delusional belief in conspiracies highlight the paranoid process, in which a danger is externalized from within, and fantasy substitutes for reality. When applying psychoanalytic concepts to history, however, it is important not to over-simplify and to instead encompass complexity. There are actual conspiracies in history (such as the actual 9/11 plot itself) and variants of conspiracy thinking have always existed on the left as well as on the right.

The prevalence of conspiracy thinking in the thought processes of Donald Trump is a disturbing reminder that this proclivity has powerful roots in human psychology and has often played a destructive role in history. Anti-Semitism, for example, is perhaps the mother of all conspiracy theories. Illiberal demagoguery rejects dialogue and compromise and flees from the anxiety engendered by uncertainty and multi-faceted reality to embrace comforting illusions that fuse fear with hatred. A productive line of psychohistorical analysis would draw parallels between the era we are going through with accelerating technologically-driven change and globalization of economies, cultures, and conflicts, and the era from 1870-1914 in which Europe underwent a similarly wrenching socio-economic transformation, bringing mass immigration, culture-shock, and the rise of the conspiracy theory that became modern anti-Semitism. In both eras, the temptation for simplistic solutions, charismatic leadership, and conspiracy thinking grew and now grows apace, driven by trauma-related psychological processes. Hurling epithets of “fascist” and “racist” is no substitute for understanding the psychohistorical roots of the Trump phenomenon or developing a psychologically astute and viable political alternative and strategy that effectively addresses the problems and anxieties that fuel it.

Page 15