If you were asked to picture a “revolutionary leader,” you’d probably think of a bearded figure in combat fatigues (such as Fidel Castro or Che Guevara), a rabble-rousing firebrand like Leon Trotsky or Maximilien Robespierre, or perhaps the glowering image of a turbaned Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. You probably wouldn’t picture an obese 78-year-old American real estate heir with a combover, in a dark suit and a long red tie.
Appearances, as they say, can be deceiving.
If you were asked to picture a “revolutionary leader,” you’d probably think of a bearded figure in combat fatigues (such as Fidel Castro or Che Guevara), a rabble-rousing firebrand like Leon Trotsky or Maximilien Robespierre, or perhaps the glowering image of a turbaned Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. You probably wouldn’t picture an obese 78-year-old American real estate heir with a combover, in a dark suit and a long red tie.
Appearances, as they say, can be deceiving.
In a book written about 30 years ago, I defined a revolution as “the destruction of an existing state by members of its own society, followed by the creation of a new political order.” Although the ultimate impact of Trumpism remains to be seen, at first glance his aspirations (and those of his supporters) appear to fit that definition. As the past two months have made abundantly clear, U.S. President Donald Trump isn’t just trying to modify or reverse the policies of his predecessors. All presidents do that to some degree. Rather, he and his supporters are seeking to destroy or radically alter some of the key institutions that have governed the United States for decades, including the meaning of the Constitution itself. They are also attempting to implement far-reaching—indeed, revolutionary—changes to key aspects of U.S. foreign policy, moves far more fundamental than Richard Nixon’s outreach to China or George W. Bush’s ill-fated effort to transform the Middle East.
In that earlier book, I argued that mass revolutions (i.e., revolutions that arise from popular mobilization against the elite and that are led by longtime dissidents like Mao Zedong or Vladimir Lenin) almost always lead to wars through a fatal combination of fear and overconfidence. Trying to overthrow an established regime is a risky endeavor, and would-be revolutionaries face enormous collective action problems. To persuade people to join or support a revolutionary movement, its leaders must persuade their followers that the revolt will succeed despite what might seem like insurmountable odds. To do that, they promote ideologies that portray the old order as evil, incapable of reform (which is why it must be overthrown), and doomed to fall.
Revolutionary movements as diverse as the French radicals, the American Founding Fathers, and the Bolsheviks typically see themselves as the heralds of a new model for society both at home and elsewhere. For this reason, they are prone to believing their success in gaining power will inspire others and that their example will eventually spread elsewhere. The Islamic State is the most recent example of this kind of movement: Its leaders were convinced that establishing a new caliphate in Iraq and Syria would trigger sympathetic upheavals around the Arab/Islamic world and eventually beyond.
When a movement based on novel ideas like these gains power, other states naturally worry that its example might be contagious, especially if the new government actively proclaims its desire to spread its principles elsewhere. Not surprisingly, existing regimes that fear this prospect will be tempted to snuff out the new regime before it gets too strong, a temptation increased by the chaos and temporary weakness that usually occurs in the aftermath of the revolution itself.
Revolutionary regimes have every reason to worry about foreign intervention, therefore, but their ideologies tend to portray their foreign opponents as paper tigers who will be vulnerable to a rising revolutionary tide. Thus, both sides tend to be simultaneously fearful and overconfident: Each thinks the other is dangerous but also easy to defeat. Both sides are often wrong, and the typical result is neither a rapid wave of similar upheavals nor the swift ouster of the new regime. Instead, the more common result is the kind of protracted conflict that followed the French, Russian, and Iranian revolutions (and, to a lesser extent, the American, Mexican, and Turkish revolutions as well).
The good news is that Trumpism isn’t a mass movement like the ones that toppled the Bourbons, the Romanovs, or the Pahlavis, and Trump isn’t that kind of revolutionary leader. Trumpism is a “revolution from above,” where disenchanted members of the elite (frequently the military) gain power and replace key elements of the old order with new ones. In this sense, it is more like the Turkish revolution led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (a disaffected Ottoman general), the Egyptian revolution led by Gamal Abdel Nasser and the “Free Officers” (more disaffected military leaders), or the Meiji Restoration in Japan. “Revolutions from above” can also lead to conflict and war, but they tend to be less disruptive than mass revolutions “from below.”
Nor is Trumpism likely to prove contagious. Trump and allies like Steve Bannon have made common cause with autocrats or illiberal democrats such as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, and former President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and the administration has shown a strong affinity for right-wing extremists such as the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the National Rally in France, but these movements predate Trumpism and were not inspired by him. Trump hasn’t invented a radically new revolutionary model; he’s just following the playbook for democratic backsliding and self-dealing perfected by leaders like Orban or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Having the world’s most powerful country lined up with these autocrats is significant, but we’ve seen this movie many times before. And it is worth noting that Trump’s early moves have helped mainstream parties in several places, most notably Canada, Germany, and Great Britain. The French Revolution it ain’t.
It is more accurate to think of Trump not as a revolutionary leader advancing a radically new and potentially contagious model for the world, but as a reactionary leader seeking to turn the clock back. The “MAGA” slogan gives the game away: If you’re claiming to make the country great again, your gaze is firmly fixed in the rearview mirror and not on the future.
Instead of the managed free trade that fueled seven decades of economic growth, he wants import taxes (aka tariffs) like the ones that President William McKinley imposed more than a century ago. Instead of racial and gender equality and tolerance for other minorities, he wants a return to white supremacy and traditional gender roles. Instead of sustained global engagement guided by international law and collaborative multilateral institutions in which Washington plays a leading role, he wants to disengage. Instead of great-power competition constrained by norms, he wants the great powers to be free to grab whatever they can, just as they did a century ago. Instead of freedom of speech and patriotic dissent, he wants a muzzled press, subservient universities, and the ability to deport legal residents solely because of their political views. Instead of presiding over a diverse nation whose energies are renewed by the arrival of ambitious immigrants, he wants an America surrounded by walls, where only some of the people born here are citizens. Instead of public policy based on science and evidence, he wants the “facts” to be whatever he and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. say they are.
Apart from the peculiarly destructive role that Elon Musk is playing in this process, there is nothing new or revolutionary about any of this. It’s the familiar autocrat’s playbook that has been perfected and pursued in many other places—usually to their detriment—just not here in the United States. Lest we forget: The United States was founded in a revolution against this way of running a country, and it has moved closer to those stated ideals over time. Until now. On the eve of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it would be tragic indeed if what we end up celebrating next year is not the revolutionary principles contained in that document, but rather their demise.
