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What links Trump and Putin? Revenge
Edward A. Wasserman
May. 5, 2024 5:00 am
Earlier this year, in a Feb. 2 New York Times commentary, Carlos Lozada criticized Donald Trump’s apparent lack of political philosophy: “The difficulty with Trumpism is Trump himself, who renders any coherent ism impossible.” This assessment agrees with the widespread belief that Trump is utterly unschooled in geopolitical history or philosophy. Although few would disagree with Trump’s scholarly naiveté, his political acumen may have been seriously underestimated.
Both Trump and Vladimir Putin actually espouse a very real and formidable political ideology — revanchism. Originally a French term, revanchism derives from a common word in French and English— “revenge.” Revanchism customarily refers to a spirit of revenge or retribution which motivates and legitimates a defeated nation’s aggressively recovering lost territory. Revanchism also applies to the forceful restoration of diminished political power. How does revanchism link Putin and Trump?
Putin’s Territorial Revanchism
Putin has called the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century, one which represents the total “disintegration of historical Russia.” Those remarks roused grave concerns that Putin was pursuing a revanchist plan to reconstruct the Soviet Union — concerns which were strongly confirmed by Russia’s unprovoked military assault on Ukraine. Furthermore, don’t believe for an instant that reannexing this former Soviet republic would signify the end of Putin’s expansionism. History shows that leaders of revanchist powers are not known for appetite suppression.
Trump’s Political Revanchism
As noted earlier, revanchism is not limited to reclaiming lost territory, but also to recouping lost political clout as well as to restoring an earlier status quo. Trump is fully aware that political dominance in the United States was first exercised by whites (particularly white Christian men). Thus, granting full citizenship to all Americans after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 represented twin existential threats to white domination. Capping those threats was Barack Obama’s assuming the presidency in 2009. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign can therefore be seen as a revanchist effort to turn back the political clock to an earlier halcyon era of white sovereignty to “Make America Great Again.”
Additional forces endanger America’s white hegemony. Here, another originally French expression is germane — demography is destiny. For many years, the demography of American society was predicted to become a “minority majority” nation, with people of color surpassing the white populace. Add to this inexorable trend the escalating numbers of non-white migrants entering the country and the central tenet of Trump’s political philosophy comes into focus — what scholars have termed “racial revanchism.” Indeed, Trump launched his 2016 campaign by vilifying those migrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
Over the past eight years, Trump has commandeered the Republican Party and vigorously proposed policies to constrain immigration and to limit access to the ballot box, especially in urban centers where non-white citizens predominantly reside. Trump’s other revanchist priorities have sought to rescind Obama’s legislative successes — particularly the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.
Revanchism 2024
The 2024 presidential contest is well underway. Joe Biden has disparaged Trump’s promulgating an American tale of “resentment, revenge, and retribution.” Such sharp rebukes as these are routinely dismissed as mere political hyperbole. In this case, however, Trump himself has enthusiastically embraced that characterization, proudly and repeatedly declaring to his acolytes, “I am your retribution!”
Beyond any of the other factors that may link Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, don’t ignore their decidedly revanchist philosophies. Revenge remains a powerful political force in both the United States and Russia.
Edward A. Wasserman is a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Iowa. He lives in Iowa City.
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