FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Populists returning to power come armed with a list of enemies, not political choices!
A specter is haunting Europe: that of Donald Trump's return to the White House. As a recent opinion poll shows, even voters on the European far right – with the notable exception of Viktor Orban's Fidesz party in Hungary – are disillusioned by the prospect of four more years of division.
But whatever Europeans may think of a second Trump presidency, it is the American people who will decide. Many of the European elite seem to believe that Trump's return will not happen, because, in their view, it should not happen. They are also wary of predicting a Trump victory in November for fear of antagonizing the Biden administration. Fortunately, considerable reserves of sangfroid remain on the continent, so if Trump ends up victorious, Europe will adapt. After all, he survived his first term.
In Eastern Europe we have learned that when a populist leader returns to power, he dreams not of revolution but of revenge. This happened in Hungary in 2010, for example, when Orbán took revenge on the Socialists, who, in their words, won the previous election by lying from morning to night. It is also what happened in Poland in 2015, when Jarosław Kaczyński's Law and Justice party regained power. The populist leader returning after being ousted by the "deep state" is not in the mood for reconciliation, but for payback.
The Trump who governed America from 2017-2021 was an outsider, angry with the elites but quietly demanding their recognition. He dreamed that one day his enemies would be impressed by him. It is no coincidence that one of his first moves after winning the 2016 election was to meet with the editorial board of the New York Times.
But that was the old game. When political analyst Robert Kagan peered into Trump's mind last year, what he saw was a man who had spent the last four years "fighting to stay out of jail, plagued by a slew of prosecutors and powerless to do what he likes to do best: revenge".
Trump 2.0 will not be about respect or recognition, but about revenge. And the desire for payback is not just a personal characteristic of the leader - it is the name of the game. By reinventing the Republican party around the myth of a stolen election, Trump isn't just seeking revenge, he's expecting to get a mandate for it.
European experts trying to predict the priorities of a second Trump administration often make a costly mistake. They assume, rightly, that he has an instinctive aversion to alliances. But they remain blind to the basic fact that populists do not return to power with a list of policy priorities. They return brandishing a list of enemies and regretting their earlier naivety. Policy choices, such as they are, will be determined by the logic of revenge.
The politics of revenge can best be understood by reading Shakespeare. In Hamlet, Claudius declares, "And where the insult is, let the great ax fall."
Shakespeare's plays are unlikely to be read next to European political leaders debating policy responses to a second Trump administration. But they should be. Only reading the classics will understand that Trump's position on NATO will not be determined by the size of other members' defense budgets, but by his desire to settle scores with the generals he believes betrayed him in 2020 .
Massaging Trump's ego won't be enough to hold the alliance together. For him, NATO is on the wrong side of history. For the populist returning to power, the fight against the deep state is the only one that matters. And in Trump's political imagination, NATO is part of the deep state. As such, it limits America's freedom of action.
Before February 24, 2022, most European leaders refused to believe that Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine, because they saw such a game as irrational and self-defeating. But Putin did what he had threatened. In dealing with Trump, the smartest thing leaders can do is to understand that he means what he says. / Adapted "Pamphlet" from "Financial Times"
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