The Rise to Power of Donald Trump and its Aftermath

The above quotation by Napoleon, early in the 19th century, is a succinct summary of his character and applies in good measure to Donald Trump.

When Trump acceded to the United States (US) presidency for a second time in January, he soon showed an inordinate desire for supremacy.

Paradoxically, his search for power after power will be the source of division in the US and beyond.

This is because however unlimited the power of the sovereign may be, and Trump acts as if it is Olympian, it can never prevent people from forming judgements according to their own intellects, or being influenced by their emotions.

It is impossible to decide by law the intricacies of opinion and free thought.

In a democracy, citizens submit to the control of authority over their actions but not over their judgement and reason.

Democracy is designed to accommodate a diversity of opinions.

HOW DID IT HAPPEN?

One of the most important questions in understanding Trump and those with boundless arrogance, vanity and pride is to explore what produced them.

Trump symbolises what Derek Thompson, who wrote a profoundly original article in The Atlantic, calls ‘the end of the social century’.

While the first half of the 20th century was extraordinarily social with vibrant public spaces, we have since seen the rise of unbridled individualism as communities become increasingly mobile, retreat into many diverse private spaces such as private swimming pools, golf courses, luxury cars and yachts, jets, cable television, and cellphones, to the point of becoming ‘phonebound’. 

In 2020, philosopher Andrew Taggart observed, in an essay in the religious journal First Things, that a new hyper masculinity and individualism emerged with personal optimisation of freedom, of essentially alone and atomised individuals.

Socially underdeveloped childhood became widespread. Children did not play together, missing out on one of the key experiences for becoming truly human as the German writer Friedrich Schiller memorably noted.

Increasingly, the world of TikTok, Instagram, X and Facebook and artificial intelligence, robotics and machine learning, deepen social disconnectedness, spawning divisive forms of identity politics and othering.

Now, the ability of the community and the village for mediating conflict is lost, leading to a grotesque form of social media politics of victors and vanquished in which love and the truth have been sacrificed on the altar of motormouth authoritarian populism.

UNLIMITED DESIRES

Trump, as was illustrated in the insurrection at a key fulcrum of American democracy – the US congress – is the real disturber of peace.

At the same time as adopting ‘America First’, he sets no limit on his desires for wealth, property, power and reputation.

In his drive to achieve this, he acts recklessly as shown by his implosion of part of US Agency For International Development and the purge of the Centre for Disease Control, what he calls ‘deep state scientists’, while he actively engages in state capture of a different kind.    

Trump’s character, ably fortified by his crony hyper-capitalist techno-sycophantic advisers, such as Elon Musk, profoundly shape the international relations of the present US administration.

This will directly impact Namibia and other states. 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The word ‘international’ was coined by Jeremy Bentham and first appeared in ‘An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation’ (1780).

Bentham invented the word to give a more accurate rendering of the Latin phrase ius gentium or ‘law of nations’.

More recently, it has been used to identify interactions between state-based and non-state actors across issue areas, geographic boundaries, regions and continents.

International law, international economic relations – such as trade and investment and international cultural, scientific and technological exchanges – are part of international relations.

So too are all bilateral and multilateral relations. Multipolarity is a feature of international relations.

Those who dominate such a system need not be states.

It can be blocs, coalitions, corporate interests and trans-regional or continental groupings.

Trump’s simplistic, polarised view of the world is one of anarchy within which strong states compete for global dominance. He is focused on the rivalry between the US and China.

His variant of classical realism – there are different variants of realism – is anchored in the realist lexicon of power, self-help, sovereignty, subsuming human rights under state rights (witness his violations of international humanitarian law in respect of migrants and his sharp rebuke of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice) and empire.

He is suspicious of institutions, such as the United Nations (UN), the European Union and the World Health Organisation, and proposes self-help and autonomous development.

AN ORWELLIAN WORLD

Ultimately, it is about ‘statism’ – supreme sovereignty within US territorial space and exercising hard power in defined spheres of influence of national and strategic interest – survival, national security and self-help.

In his view, there is no room for idealism. The bipolarity of the Cold War has been replaced by unipolarity, he wrongly believes.

This explains his interest in rare earth minerals in Ukraine, Greenland, Canada and his concern with the Panama Canal that is important for China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

In important respects, the US-led neo-liberal world order has reached a critical inflection point.

The markers of an Orwellian world are there: Asymmetric globalisation, surveillance states, divisive identity politics, assigning appropriation or blame to migrants, a reign of fear fuelled by intra-state conflict and ecological and social fragility. 

WHAT TO DO?

For Namibia and Namibians, indeed for countless other countries and people, the question arises: What is to be done about Trump and his misguided triumphalism?

The answers are not self-evident.

One answer could be for Namibia, as a small state with an open economy, to initiate and actively work towards a global alliance of other successful small states as a means of generating bargaining power against hegemonic states like the US and China.

Such an alliance should pivot around at least two medium powers, preferably in different regions of the world. In this context, the newly enlarged Brics+ may have utility value for Namibia. So too the Group of 77.

Given the historiography of Namibia’s international relations and considering the pivotal role of the UN in the transition to independence, Namibia has to resolutely follow and respect the core precepts of a UN-chartered world.

This means Namibia should actively promote the universality of human rights and a return to idealism as a guiding philosophy.

Idealism is not only back at the core of mainstream philosophical thought, but offers unique insights into contemporary human problems viewed through an ethical lens.

A return to idealism, however, may prove difficult as Namibia’s most recent past was drawn with a realist brush.

To act within an idealist frame, Namibia will have to develop a brand of transcendental idealism, based on soft power, that is inclusive and tries to understand the complex interconnections among seemingly unconnected issues in the global arena.

This will require an urgent reset of diplomatic training, building credible research capacity, accompanied by a restructuring of the Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation.

Nothing short of a return to the lodestar Namibia once was in the region and beyond. 

This soft power, as a descriptive concept, should be at the heart of a yet to be established regional school of diplomacy where Southern African Development Community and African Union diplomats can be trained. 

Namibia should avoid punching above its weight in the world system: As the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu remarked, a leader is best not when people obey their commands, but when they barely know he/she exists.

There is indeed a duty to optimism. 

• André du Pisani is an emeritus professor of politics at the University of Namibia with a keen interest in ethics, history and international relations. The views expressed in this article are his own.

In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.