No society can do without social inequality, because it must foster the useful knowledge and skills of its citizens in order to survive in the competition among nations. If it were to defy this imperative—as Mao did during the Cultural Revolution and as Vladimir Putin has done since the attack on Ukraine, through which he lost his best minds to foreign countries—then a country slides into the abyss because it falls behind technologically. If, on the other hand—as in turbo-capitalism—it is a state’s declared goal to reward useful knowledge and skills beyond measure, then it risks an uprising by the disadvantaged segment of the population, and thus destroys social stability. Nothing is as dangerous to a state’s cohesion as the resentment of segments of the population who were respected citizens just yesterday but suddenly count for nothing.
Donald Trump has turned the white losers of globalization in his country into his followers—people who, for almost half a century after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, were able to find secure and well-paid jobs—not least because, following its victory in World War II, the U.S. was the leading industrial power in nearly every sector of the economy. However, since the early 1990s, these people have lost their jobs en masse because leading corporations increasingly outsourced larger portions of their production to low-wage countries like China in order to become more competitive on the global market. Trump emerged as an opponent of the establishment as the latter allowed the former centers of industry to turn into the present-day ill-famed rustbelts pushing millions of workers into low-paying jobs and into poverty. Historians are agreed that this occurred not only with the approval of the Republicans, but also of the Democrats, who, by their own admission, are particularly committed to the welfare of disadvantaged groups. Robert Reich, the well-known Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, not only had no objection to the outsourcing of ever-increasing portions of industrial production, but actively promoted and justified it; and Hillary Clinton literally referred to the victims of this policy—the “losers of globalization”—as “deplorables”—poor souls who refuse to accept the trend of the times.
Since then, the social stability of the United States has been at stake. It is threatened by a broad segment of resentful citizens—once of secure status—who have been pushed into the underclass—the precariat—as a result of these policies. A keen sense of the widespread and growing resentment among Americans propelled Donald Trump to the incredible rise to become the most powerful man in the world, even though his career up to that point had not been particularly promising. His efforts as a real estate agent brought him little success; he only managed to hold his own as a showman. The winners of globalization—roughly a third of Americans, by my estimate—shake their heads at a politician whose ignorance and cluelessness have become proverbial. The losers of globalization, on the other hand—I estimate them at about a third as well—are or were enthusiastic about him because finally someone stood up for their interests and had a simple answer to all difficult questions.
And the mutual understanding between Donald Trump and his supporters is by no means mere coincidence—Trump himself, has gone through the school of resentment. Admittedly, he has been able to impress many in personal interactions. Especially in his role as a showman, he successfully practiced the art of seduction and influence, but in conversations with intellectuals and scientists, he met predominantly with rejection, which at best manifested itself as amused dismissal, and at worst, as open contempt. From such encounters America’s most powerful man has retained a deep-seated hatred of education, truth, and superior knowledge, which to this day manifests itself in his relentless disparagement of the nation’s most venerable institutions of learning—not just Harvard University. His hatred of the country’s intellectuals goes so far that he would even ban scientific evidence—such as climate change—and expel its advocates from the country. That he is a declared opponent of non-white immigrants goes without saying—from the outset he used hatred as one of the most effective political tools.
Trump, a man of resentment despised by the educated, has made himself the champion of the “deplorables” and could well deal a death blow to the institutions of education and free research still deeply rooted in the United States, if those institutions are not strong enough to stand up to him. The American dilemma lies in the fact that for a functioning state accepted by a majority of citizens, turbo-capitalism with its devastating effects on social stability is just as little a solution as the revolt against education and free research that Donald Trump is currently celebrating.
What is currently happening with the political and social fabric of the United States has its deeper roots in the personal makeup of a man named Donald Trump. A typical reaction to resentment is for the person affected to combat it with a delusion of superiority. Germans are familiar with this from a postcard painter rejected by the University of Vienna, who, a few years later, presented himself to them as a savior of humanity appointed by providence. Donald Trump similarly transforms painful feelings of intellectual inferiority into a fantastical boost to his self-esteem. He adopted the technique for doing so from a former friend, the notorious New York lawyer Roy Cohn, in the form of three categorical imperatives: Attack, attack, attack – Admit nothing, deny everything – Claim victory and never admit defeat.
The delusion of this former showman demands constant self-affirmation, which repeatedly turns into manic self-adulation. Every one of his actions, so he affirms, surpasses everything previous presidents have ever accomplished. Since he, Donald J. Trump, has been in power Americans have been doing better than ever before in their history. Almost daily he preaches to his people and the whole world that he himself is the greatest of all humans who have ever walked the earth. For educated Americans, his narcissistic bluster is nothing but embarrassing, but the uneducated lap it up like a drug, using it to boost their own self-esteem. However, since the war with Iran this delusion of self-deification has become extremely dangerous—not only for himself, but for the rest of the world. Donald Trump, who had promised Americans he would keep the U.S. out of all wars in the future, never really took his own promises seriously, because he is far too erratic to take anything other than himself seriously. While just a short time ago he was desperate to win the Nobel Peace Prize so that President Obama wouldn’t imagine he had done more for world peace, he suddenly discovered a thirst for spectacular victories within himself as the humiliation of Venezuela turned out be rather easy. Doesn’t a great man become even greater when other nations tremble before him and he tramples them underfoot the moment they dare to offer even the slightest resistance?
The humiliation of Venezuela through the abduction of President Maduro was brilliantly planned and executed. However, this is no proof of the current president’s strategic foresight; it merely attests to the extraordinary capabilities of the U.S. military. Precise preparation, a military operation timed to the second, accurate assessment of potential risks, and corresponding contingency strategies—everything that the high-stakes gambler Donald Trump naturally lacks—the military had brought to bear to demonstrate its own superiority to the entire world. In this lightning strike, however, Goliath had faced off against a dwarf. The mullah regime in Iran acts even more inhumanely and brutally against its own population than the now-imprisoned drug lord of Caracas. Unlike Venezuela, however, Iran is no dwarf, but a large country armed to the teeth. Even if Israel and the United States were to largely destroy its military capabilities, the religious fanaticism of its leadership and a portion of its population could still thwart any hope of victory, unless foreign troops occupy the country. Let’s not forget that a well-armed minority of five percent is quite capable of keeping the remaining unarmed 95 percent in check for a long time.
In fact, the astonishingly rapid success in Venezuela has become a trap for the American president. Since then, he has felt like an emperor who—like Caesar before him—came, saw, and conquered. In fact, Donald Trump has himself been defeated, but without even noticing it—defeated by someone far more intelligent, namely Benjamin Netanyahu, who outwitted him and downright tricked him. The Israeli prime minister was always aware that his small country has no chance of survival in the long run if Iran continues to arm itself and eventually acquires nuclear weapons as well. It was a masterstroke how he turned the uninformed and, at heart, simple-minded American president into his willing accomplice, who is only now realizing what trap he allowed himself to be lured into. But now it is too late for the duped would-be triumphant. It is too late because he cannot back out without suffering a total loss of face, now that all the goals he previously proclaimed are slipping further and further out of sight. Trump will not topple the regime—at least not in the foreseeable future. At best, he will slow down the continued production of ballistic missiles and drones, but he will not prevent it—and he has not even been able to put an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Rather, the mullah regime, now determined to do anything, is showing him its teeth. By blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the newly appointed Ayatollah is blackmailing the rest of the world.
People filled with resentment are usually distinguished from others by a particular vindictiveness. This certainly applies to Donald Trump. He immediately drops even his closest associates if they dare to contradict him; he systematically drives his opponents out of office and ensures that heads of state grovel before him—including those of Europe. One cannot even blame our presidents, chancellors, and prime ministers for this subservience; they know all too well the power an American president wields. A wrong word, a serious objection, can lead him to drive entire economies into ruin with high tariffs. But one thing, at least, must be said in Donald Trump’s favor: he does not seem bent on the physical destruction of his opponents; those who voluntarily submit to him can regain his mercy. By nature, the man does not seem to be cruel.
Hitler and Stalin were possessed by outright bloodthirstiness; we find it just as much in Stalin’s admirer, Vladimir Putin. The killers sent out by today’s Russian regime to track down and “liquidate traitors” all over the world are subsequently decorated; they receive high honors, like the butchers of Bucha. Anyone who openly opposes Russia’s incumbent president must expect to be physically eliminated—often, a suicide is then faked to maintain appearances. When it comes to lies, too, one must not confuse Donald Trump with Vladimir Putin. Although, according to his critics, the American president’s lies now number in the thousands, they were comparatively harmless—at least until the Iran war. They have shaken only his personal reputation, but not the world. The situation is different in today’s Russia. This has to do with the depth and extent of resentment. In the United States, the latter only affected the losers of globalization and their mouthpiece, president Trump; in Russia, it stretches back centuries. For a long time, Europe was the civilized, prosperous, and—until World War II—militarily superior power in the western part of the Eurasian continent. Despite some outstanding intellectual giants of their culture in the nineteenth century, Russians still feel marginalized, left behind, and inferior—especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, whose dictatorial regime may not have brought them glory, but at least instilled fear in the free world of a nuclear-armed giant empire.
Putin, like Napoleon a physically small man with enormous ambitions, could not tolerate this second-rate status, especially since Barack Obama had committed the grave error of downgrading Russia to a “third-rate regional power.” Around 2010, Putin’s initially pro-European policy turned into growing hostility. If the West does not love us, then it should at least fear us as it did in the days of the Soviet Union—this is how one might describe his policy, which consequently drew ever more heavily on the model of the Soviet Union and, specifically, on Stalin. Stalin had moved entire peoples, such as the Tatars, around the map at will and sometimes proceeded unscrupulously to their annihilation, for example during the Holodomor in Ukraine, where Stalin sought to exterminate an entire people through starvation because they resisted the collectivization of agriculture. Vladimir Putin is continuing this policy in his own way. The war against Ukraine aims at the destruction of a sovereign state and its inhabitants, if and as long as they do not bow to the Russian yoke.
And the bottom line? Don’t the resentments in Russia and those across the Atlantic have the same effects? Aren’t the circumstances essentially the same on both sides?
No, absolutely not. With utmost emphasis, this question must be answered in the negative. So far, the democratic institutions of the U.S. have resisted the would-be triumphant leader and friend of dictators at their helm. The situation is entirely different in Russia. There, the institutions—the judiciary foremost among them—have long been brought into totalitarian line. Lies are told here and there, but in the United States, one is free to speak openly about lies, and their liberal use by the president will most likely lead to his later impeachment. In Russia, such a thing is unthinkable. Against this entirely different backdrop, any equation of the two powers is out of the question.
People and parties who nevertheless insist that power commits the same crimes everywhere are deliberately overlooking these fundamental differences. Whether one is physically eliminated for publicly expressing opinions against the regime or, at most, removed from a professorship—that is indeed a fundamental difference. That is why I believe that the intelligence agency of a democratic state could save itself a great deal of trouble when assessing a party’s democratic credentials. Sympathy for today’s Russian regime—especially that for Putin himself—is revealing evidence of a penchant for resentment, and this penchant flirts everywhere in the world with the desire for an iron fist that destroys all opponents.