The Trump Administration’s Uses, and Abuses, of History
"Trump Takes America’s ‘Imperial Presidency’ to a New Level ------ "Donald Trump’s ‘chilling effect’ on free speech and dissent is threatening US democracy "MAGA death threats drive Trump agenda - Violent Threats Against Members of Congress Spiked as Senate Considered Trump’s Nominees" See also: Narcissist and Solipsist, why not both - Trump isn’t a narcissist – he’s a solipsist. And it means a few simple things [...]“This is from when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt,” he told us, as I recall. “It says that Alexander was the child of Amen, the god of all the gods, the one who was so great that even to this day we say his name at the end of prayers.” “Why would Alexander make that claim?” I asked. “Because” he said, “it’s a lot easier to seize and hold power when people think you have a connection to their idea of divinity. ------ "
For better and worse, 2025 was a historical year.
By Cameron Abadi, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy.
An excavator sits on the rubble after the East Wing of the White House in Washington was demolished on Oct. 28. Alex Wong/Getty Images
December 26, 2025, 7:00 AM
Unlike other recent U.S. presidencies, the Trump administration does not seem to be regularly inviting renowned historians to advise White House officials on policy or chronicle its decisions for posterity. (Think Jon Meacham under President Joe Biden, or Taylor Branch during the Clinton administration.) That absence is generally consistent with the Trump administration’s avowed posture of anti-intellectualism. But it also stands in tension with what has become increasingly obvious several months into President Donald Trump’s second term: that this U.S. government is consciously setting out to make history. 2025
This is evident in part in Trump’s personal pursuit of glory—universal adulation for superlative achievements—of which his desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize is the most obvious expression. He wants figures or institutions of authority to recognize that he has made America great again, and thus himself qualifies as great.
But the administration’s interest in history making is expressed not via appeals to existing institutions but rather in bids to remake the landscape of institutions and thus enter a new era of history entirely. This is the sort of history making captured in the ambitious world ordering of former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s Present at the Creation—and the destructive iconoclastic impulses unleashed during revolutionary moments such as the Protestant Reformation. By rejecting so many of its political inheritances, the Trump administration has thrust geopolitical actors around the world into an entirely new era—and forced the rest of us to attempt to make sense of it.
Of course, trying to figure out the final shape of an order that has not yet coalesced—trying to figure out history before it has happened—is necessarily a speculative enterprise. That’s especially so when you’re trying to presage not only future events but also their future effects and any retrospective meaning they’ll be given by posterity. It’s basic prudence to heed the proverbial (and probably apocryphal) caution expressed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who, when asked in the 1970s about the French Revolution’s impact, allegedly said that “it is too early to tell.”
And yet, there’s still an undeniable impulse to try making sense of all that’s happening in our world by placing it in some historical context. That’s part of what Foreign Policy has been up to this year—including in these five standout pieces.
Trump is the cause of wide-reaching political changes, both in the United States and abroad. But Cambridge University historian Christopher Clark suggests that it’s also important to understand Trump as a symptom of a much larger historical process that was well underway before he took office: the growing obsolescence of modernity. This bygone era was defined fundamentally by a belief in growth, peace, and, above all, progress.
“This narrative of development—world history as a bildungsroman—no longer comforts us as it once did,” Clark writes. “Economic growth in its modern form has proved to be ecologically disastrous.Capitalism has lost much of its charisma; today, it is even considered (if we follow economist Thomas Piketty and other critics) a threat to social cohesion.And then there is climate change, looming over everything like a threatening storm cloud: a threat that not only calls into question the nature of the future but also suggests the possibility that there may be no future at all. The multifaceted nature of contemporary politics, the present of turmoil and change without a clear sense of direction, is causing enormous uncertainty.”
It has become ubiquitous to attempt to explain the Trump administration and its policies by evoking historical analogies. The fact that these analogies tend to contradict one another is usually left unstated. In a recent essay, Ivan Krastev and Leonard Benardo address an even more fundamental question: Under what conditions are we compelled to search for historical parallels to make sense of our present circumstances in the first place—and when are they actually useful?
Historical analogies, Krastev and Benardo write, “have several distinct advantages when it comes to the current moment. Unlike post-Cold War prophecies, historical analogies tend to be less Eurocentric and more rooted in a diverse set of national histories. In the aftermath of the Cold War, Western liberal democracies were considered the model of the world to come; how people outside Europe or the United States were trying to make sense of the radical political rupture they themselves were experiencing was of regrettably modest interest. Now, there is a growing recognition that we cannot make sense of world in flux if we are unaware of the historical analogies used in different corners of the world.”
Tourists take photos of the spot where a portrait of U.S. President Donald Trump once hung at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on March 25. The state removed the portrait after Trump complained that it was deliberately unflattering. Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images
It may be tempting to think that it’s a good thing for a U.S. leader to be motivated by a desire to enter history books as a great president. Why shouldn’t we want our presidents to be maximally ambitious? FP columnist Stephen M. Walt argues, however, that historical ambition can be a destructive force all its own.
“When leaders are driven primarily by the desire for personal glory, rather than by a genuine commitment to the public interest, they are more likely to pursue meaningless ‘achievements’ that bring few benefits (e.g., renaming the Gulf of Mexico) and to ignore more challenging problems whose solution would help millions of people (such as improving infrastructure or reducing economic inequality),” Walt writes. “They are more inclined to take big risks, conjure up imaginary emergencies to justify extreme measures, and pursue lofty but ill-conceived projects that ordinary citizens will end up paying for. And if appearances are all that matter, an ambitious leader will spend more time building up cults of personality and suppressing criticism than on actually governing. Sound familiar?”
Among the Trump administration’s most decisive changes to U.S. foreign policy has been a frontal assault on foreign aid—one aimed not only at the domestic institutions that organized and distributed that assistance, but also at the international development ideology that justified similar efforts around the world for at least the past decade. Yet FP columnist Adam Tooze argues that abandoning the world’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) was long overdue.
“The broader vision of the SDGs was always a gamble at long odds, and in practice, it has delivered so little that it raises the question of whether it was ever anything more than a self-serving exercise on the part of global elites,” Tooze writes. “With hindsight, the SDGs, for all their capaciousness and generosity of spirit, seem like an effort to craft a world organized around a spreadsheet of universal values rather than politics and around a happy blend of public and private economic interests.”
A sizable consensus of legal scholars in the United States, and a growing number of policymakers, now argue that the Trump administration’s ongoing use of the military against alleged Venezuelan drug smugglers amounts to a violation of domestic and international laws—including the 1973 War Powers Act, which sets limits on the president’s authority to use the military. FP columnist Julian Zelizer investigates the origins of the War Powers Act—and shows why it was never as effective as its authors intended.
“The War Powers Act failed to achieve its goals,” Zelizer writes. “The president has retained massive authority to conduct military operations abroad, and Congress rarely challenges the president once operations are underway. Rather than a measure to protect institutional prerogatives, both sides of the aisle have used the reform as a cudgel to attack the other party’s president while usually remaining silent about their side.”
There’s a term for Trump’s political style: authoritarian populism
"Trump Takes America’s ‘Imperial Presidency’ to a New Level"
Related:
After Watergate, the Presidency Was Tamed. Trump Is Unleashing It. In the 1970s, Congress passed a raft of laws to hold the White House accountable. President Trump has decided they don’t apply to him. [...]A power-hungry president had twisted the government into a tool for his personal political benefit. His aides kept an “enemies list” of opponents to be punished. His cronies ran the Justice Department and he made puppets of other agencies that were meant to be independent. Corporations that wanted favorable treatment from the White House were pressured to make illegal contributions to the president’s political coffers. P - As revelations of rot in the Nixon administration tumbled out through the 1970s, Senator Lawton Chiles, Democrat of Florida, captured the alarm of the Watergate era: “Nothing will bring the Republic to its knees so quickly as a bone-deep mistrust of the government by its own people,” he said. “We have seen other democracies fall within our own lifetime. Fall through internal corruption rather than outside invasion.” https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=177127620
Researchers at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute identify defining traits of the type of politics leaders like Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni employ.
By Lila Thulin
Three leaders who exemplify the authoritarian populist approach, according to a new paper, include U.S. President Donald Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Neil Freese/UC Berkeley (Sources: Evan Vucci/AP; Nicolas Economou/AP; Denes Erdos/AP)
January 21, 2025
An Austrian electoral victory by a party with Nazi roots. The “anti-terrorist” prosecution of an Indian writer for decade-old criticisms of the Hindu nationalist governing party. MAGA.
Reading global political headlines over the past decade, Míriam Juan-Torres González and her colleagues at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (OBI) saw a pattern. Around the world, politicians were fearmongering, scapegoating marginalized groups for a host of societal problems, and chipping away at democratic norms, like persecuting journalists, in the process. Internally, researchers at OBI’s Democracy and Belonging Forum began trying to label this phenomenon so they could understand how such leaders operate and eventually, figure out how to prevent their consolidation of power.
.Míriam Juan-Torres González is the head of research at the Othering & Belonging Institute’s Democracy & Belonging Forum. Courtesy of Míriam Juan-Torres González
The pattern coalesced into a hybrid style of politics that they termed “authoritarian populism.” It didn’t fit neatly into pre-existing academic boxes — authoritarian practices were occurring in mostly democratic states, for example — so Juan-Torres set out to outline the strategies and motivations common among this increasingly popular breed of world leaders, who use populist rhetoric while stoking nativism and aggrandizing their own power.
The resulting paper from OBI, published in late 2024, helps define “authoritarian populism” so readers can see it at play on the global stage. It’s important, Juan-Torres said, because “words and ideas have power; they can frame our understanding of what is and what ought to be done.”
Defining authoritarianism
In academic literature, Juan-Torres said that pure authoritarianism often refers to a regime type; it describes the way leaders govern. Authoritarians consolidate power so that they, as the executive branch, have sweeping authority. They often suppress political opposition, spread disinformation, fuel political violence and turn historically independent institutions into political actors that will help achieve their agenda. They typically use coercion to achieve these goals rather than by mustering popular support. Often, authoritarians like Vladimir Putin justify their grip on power by fanning the flames of emotionally charged topics and scapegoating marginalized groups. (Russia’s discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community is an example.)
One difference between an authoritarian government and a fascist or totalitarian one, the paper explains, is that an authoritarian government doesn’t require rabid citizen participation — a drastic example would be Hitler Youth programs in Nazi Germany — and instead leaves room for some private life that is not controlled by the government.
Insert[ Still may have it, think Jan. 6 2021, "Hang Mike Pence" was one rallying cry. And rump didn't care. ]
The problem with applying the authoritarian label willy-nilly today, Juan-Torres said, is that authoritarian practices like torture or mass surveillance have long happened in states that are otherwise democratic, with relatively free and fair elections. That discrepancy added to the OBI team’s desire to find a new way of describing modern political trends.
Populism, meanwhile, occurs when leaders rhetorically divide the population into two groups: the majority versus the elites. These leaders position themselves the true representatives of the majority group. This anti-establishment “us-versus-them” struggle is at the center of populist rhetoric, the researchers concluded.
Sen. Bernie Sanders grills Scott Bessent on wealth inequality during Bessent’s confirmation hearing to be Secretary of the Treasury. (Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO via AP Images)
But most scholars agree that populism doesn’t have a core belief; you find examples of populism in left- and right-wing circles alike. On the left, Spain’s Podemos party and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders are examples, while right-leaning populists like Geert Wilders, the fiercely anti-Islam leader of the Netherlands’ dominant Party for Freedom, rail against elites.
Authoritarian populism, defined
When you combine features of authoritarianism and populism, like mixing primary colors, you get a unique style of politics called authoritarian populism.
Juan-Torres described the authoritarian populist worldview “almost as if it were like binoculars.” Through one lens, she said, there’s the threat of an identity-based outgroup. Through the other, there’s a deep-rooted struggle between the people and elites. The sense of fear and antagonism these lenses promote leads people to accept authoritarian measures to protect themselves and their in-group. [color=red]“Taking these extreme measures that are anti-democratic [is] justified because of the enormity of the threat,” [/color]she explained.
The term “authoritarian populism” was first coined by theorist Stuart Hall .. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/stuart-hall-and-the-rise-of-cultural-studies .. in a 1979 paper describing Margaret Thatcher’s fearmongering about crime and aggressive law enforcement policies. OBI researchers said modern authoritarian populist leaders are focused on nativism (preferential treatment toward “native” inhabitants of an area over immigrants) and opposing pluralism (working toward a more cookie-cutter society instead of a multicultural one).
Unlike pure authoritarians like Putin, who maintain close ties with elites and seek to maintain a status quo, authoritarian populists often decry elites and blame them for citizens’ problems. (Behind closed doors, however, they’re known to maintain ties with elites. Juan-Torres pointed out that the recent linkage between tech leaders and MAGA politicians shows how quickly this facade of being “anti-elite” can lift.)
Leaders who typify authoritarian populism, according to the OBI paper, include U.S. President Donald Trump, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, French presidential candidate Marine LePen, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Strategies of authoritarian populists
Juan-Torres also outlined some key strategies she sees in authoritarian populists’ actions. One frames the world as a struggle between two groups characterized in a simplistic way. There’d be the virtuous in-group and the outright evil out-group. This out-group would then be scapegoated for societal problems.
Like pure authoritarians, authoritarian populists also stoke moral panics, she said, using the excuse of a perceived existential threat to justify draconian measures. One might spot this tendency in the Trump campaign’s attacks on transgender rights, which depicted a small number of trans athletes as a fundamental threat to societal norms around gender and, instead of leaving space for various types of gender identity and expression, proposed strict government regulation of trans people’s participation in these and other aspects of public life.
“I think authoritarian populists have been really good at providing a lens through which to interpret social and political reality at a time of a lot of uncertainty.” Míriam Juan-Torres
While authoritarian populists are likely to push the bounds of democratic norms, they also try to preserve at least the appearance of representing the majority of citizens, she said. This might be achieved by contesting elections (think “Stop the Steal”), energizing diehard supporters to vote, or enacting policies that will ultimately disenfranchise people they see as hostile to their cause (for instance, through strict voter ID laws enacted in the wake of the 2020 American election).
Juan-Torres pointed to Italy’s recent criminalization of NGOs that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean as a clear example of authoritarian populism. Another instance comes from the Meloni administration: In 2023, Italy stopped the mayor of Milan from issuing birth certificates that listed two mothers, an administrative move that discriminated against LGBTQ+ couples. This year, her Brothers of Italy party successfully pushed a ban on international surrogacy, another choice that draws from the authoritarian populist playbook of further marginalizing a societal out-group.
Is authoritarian populism tied to one party or another?
Not exactly. While this style of politics is “predominantly found in movements that self-describe as right-wing or alt-right,” said Juan-Torres, they don’t always map neatly onto a simple right-or-left spectrum.
The Dutch Party for Freedom, for example, includes LGBTQ+ citizens (often marginalized by right-wing politicians) as part of the in-group that must be guarded against the perceived threat of Islam. And the anti-migrant party BSW in Germany, which supports expanded social welfare, splintered from the far-left group Die Linke.
The ideological slipperiness of these movements also comes from the fact that they are notably adaptable, Juan-Torres explained. Her paper found “significant ideological flexibility both over time and within movements themselves.” Having ever-evolving central principles can help authoritarian populists build big coalitions.
By understanding how this political style works, Juan-Torres said she hopes citizens can learn how to counteract it.
“I think authoritarian populists have been really good at providing a lens through which to interpret social and political reality at a time of a lot of uncertainty,” she said. They recognize the issues people are facing and give them an explanation and a group to blame.
Other political groups should consider how they can provide a counter-narrative. The big question, she said, is: “How do we provide a space … for grievance and loss, but [that] also is positive about what we can build?”
South Korea's ex-president jailed for life over martial law attempt
"Trump Takes America’s ‘Imperial Presidency’ to a New Level [...]To his supporters, Mr. Trump’s assertion of vast power is invigorating, not disturbing. In a country they see in decline, a strong hand is the only way to dislodge a liberal, “woke” deep state that in their view has suffocated everyday Americans to the advantage of unwelcome immigrants, street criminals, globalist tycoons, underqualified minorities and out-of-touch elites. Voters struggling to maintain their standards of living or make sense of a society changing rapidly around them have twice given Mr. Trump a chance to make good on his promise to blow up politics as usual and address their concerns. P - To his critics, Mr. Trump is narcissistic, uncouth, corrupt and a danger to American democracy. He has used the office to enrich himself and his family, sullied the image of the United States around the world, sought to erase the true history of Black Americans and pursued policies that harm the very people he purports to represent. [...]“Even Nixon was a guy who got that there were limits that he had to tread carefully around even as he was trying to push them,” Mr. Schlesinger added. “Whereas Trump, he’s not interested in limits. And whether it’s through a conscious strategy or just unconscious cunning, by being so open about it, it normalizes it to some extent.” Learning Curve That may stem from Mr. Trump’s distinctive ability to overcome obstacles and scandals that would hobble any other politician. He was impeached twice, indicted four times, convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual abuse and found liable for business fraud while his firm was convicted of criminal tax evasion. Yet he won a stunning, against-the-odds comeback election victory. The Supreme Court even granted him and his successors broad immunity that it had never bestowed on any previous president. P - And so Mr. Trump evidently sees little reason to restrain himself. He has pursued an everything-everywhere-all-at-once strategy of pushing policies, even knowing that some of them may be rejected — a gamble that paid off, from his vantage point. As it turned out, not only has Congress acquiesced to vast intrusions on its traditional spheres of authority, most notably spending, but even the courts have been more of a speed bump than a stop sign."
Jake Kwon,Seoul correspondentand Kelly Ng Reuters Yoon Suk YeolReuters 10 hours ago
Yoon Suk Yeol's martial law order left South Korea more polarised than ever
South Korea's ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol has been jailed for life for masterminding an insurrection by trying to impose military rule .. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6277zz434zo .
Yoon attempted to subvert the constitution by deploying military troops to seal off the National Assembly and ordering the arrest of politicians on 3 December 2024, a Seoul court ruled. His actions fundamentally damaged South Korea's democracy and deserves a harsh punishment, presiding judge Ji Gwi-yeon told the court.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty.
Though it was short-lived, Yoon's martial law order left the nation more polarised than ever .. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yv4p95m6vo , and those deep divisions were on full display as the sentencing took place.
Huge crowds of Yoon's supporters gathered outside the court hours before the hearing, holding banners reading "Yoon, again". Many of them broke down in tears following the verdict.
Also present were anti-Yoon protesters, rallying for him to be sentenced to death.
Yoon himself showed no emotion as he learned of his fate. His lawyers alleged that the verdict was not backed by evidence and accused the judge of following a "pre-written script".
If either side launches an appeal, the case will go up to the Supreme Court, which means it could be months before the verdict is finalised.
Yoon shocked his nation on 3 December 2024 by declaring martial law on live television.
He claimed it was to protect the country from "anti-state" forces that sympathised with North Korea, but it soon became clear he was driven by domestic troubles .. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y7jxe88w3o : the opposition which held a parliamentary majority left him a lame duck president, while his wife Kim Keon Hee was at the centre of various corruption allegations.
What followed were months of political chaos, Yoon's impeachment, and a string of indictments against him and other top officials.
Former prime minister Han Duck-soo was handed a 23-year jail term last month for his part in the insurrection, while ex-defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, who advised Yoon to impose martial law, was jailed for 30 years on Thursday.
Former interior minister Lee Sang-min, former intelligence commander Roh Sang-won, and ex-police chief Cho Ji-ho were among the other officials jailed for what judges have described as "an insurrection from the top".
Many of Yoon's supporters broke down in tears following the verdict Getty Images
Security was tight outside the court on Thursday, with dozens of police buses forming a cordon to restrict public access. Some 1,000 officers were deployed for security operations, local media reported.
Inside the court, judge Ji called Yoon the "insurrectionist leader", although the judging panel found insufficient evidence to rule that he'd planned the martial law order a year before his announcement.
Yoon defended his actions throughout his trial, arguing that as president he had had the authority to declare martial law, sounding the alarm over opposition parties' obstruction of government.
He maintained that the order was necessary "to protect the freedom and sovereignty of the people and to preserve the nation and its constitution".
The ruling Democratic Party, which won the presidential election after Yoon's ouster, accused the court of "undermining judicial justice" by not sentencing Yoon to death.
"[Yoon] masterminded an insurrection that shook the very foundations of our nation," party leader Jung Chung-rae said.
"[Today's decision] is a clear regress from the people's revolution... The public will find it deeply unsatisfactory and unacceptable."
South Korea has not executed anyone on death row since December 1997, so even a death penalty for Yoon would, in effect, be life imprisonment.
Yoon is already serving jail time .. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4qdpxp78po .. for abuse of power and obstructing his own arrest after the martial law order. He still faces three more related trials.
Several former presidents before Yoon had also been convicted and jailed, but were pardoned after serving just two to five years in prison – and many expect the same for Yoon.
Additional reporting by Leehyun Choi and Hosu Lee, in Seoul
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
