Rome, Italy
For many, Donald Trump depicts an enigma, others, question his mental stability, protrait him as a would-be dictator, or a self-interested dealmaker, and many more see in his character a messiah. He is dynamic, bold, and unpredictable. Yet as President of the United States, understanding his character is crucial to comprehend his actions and future moves. The “Trump phenomenon” arose from the American society itself, from the structural imbalances of an imperial power, promising to end such burdensome imperial commitments, and appealing to the deep inward-looking American sentiment. Even if inconsistently, Trump emerged as a representative of a significant portion of the American population. He has fueled anger, reshaped the political stage, and inspired populist movements worldwide. His presidency marked a potential pivotal point in democratic norms, not only domestically. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the traits and reasoning that define Trump’s personality and his appeal to the public.
PIRANDELLIAN MASK?
If Luigi Pirandello was alive, he would find Trump’s theatrics fascinating; he exemplifies the tension between person and character, between mask and identity. His power lies in his performance. Trump both wears and un-masks the mask simultaneously: he is crude, impulsive, politically incorrect, and with anti-establishment rhetoric, breaking the norms of political theater, and rejecting the traditional political mask. “Love me or hate me.” However, this “authenticity” might be his true, hidden, powerful mask, crafted to appear genuine, charismatic, and populist.
The clearest example of a Pirandellian mask paradox is seen in his branding and narcissism. Trump portrays himself as the ultimate dealmaker, a “Master of Business” and success, which propelled him to the presidency. This is the mask. The reality, however, includes multiple major bankruptcies, lawsuits, financial losses—in short, an unsustainable way of doing business. Hence, the “persona” has become more powerful than the facts.
THE CULT OF VIOLENCE
However, narcissism is only a part of Trump’s character; authoritarianism, impulsivity, and roughness complete his frame. Fromm describes a sadist as a person with an intense desire to control, hurt, and humiliate, all personal traits belonging to Donald Trump and defining features of the authoritarian personality. Similarly, the “vengeful destructiveness” still described by Fromm as a feature of authoritarian leaders is a dominant trait of Trump in his aggressive and compulsive Tweets against his opponents; his divisive and dehumanizing language has been seconded by his followers and reversed toward Trump’s declared enemies. His hate speech, praise of violence (both implicit and explicit), and demonization of oppositional politicians and denigrated groups have resulted in verbal and physical attacks by Trump’s fan base, fueling anger and polarization. In one of his books, Trump wrote: “Even in elementary school, I was a very assertive kid… In the second grade, I actually gave a teacher a black eye – I punched my music teacher because I didn’t think he knew anything about music… It’s clear evidence that even early on, I had a tendency to stand up and make my opinion known in a very forceful way.” In September 2019, he retweeted “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office, it will cause a Civil War–like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.”
AUTORITARIAN PLEASURE
His deep-rooted aggressive tendencies help characterize and connect Trump to classic authoritarian leaders, indeed many times he has shown appreciation for figures like Putin, XiJinping, Kim Jong-Un and Victor Orban admiring their use of power, calling for “mass execution of drug dealers, encouraged police brutality, and suggested military crackdowns on protesters or threatening to imprison political rivals without due process as declared toward Zohran Mamdani ”. It raises the question of whether he envisions a similar state-controlled oligarchic model.
In Escape From Freedom (1941), Fromm describes the German economic collapse, political chaos, and social dislocation after the First World War, which created a sense of powerlessness and fear from which Germans tried to escape by voting for Hitler; they were escaping the anxiety of freedom. “They were glad to give up their freedom, and their critical faculty, in exchange for security, order, and identity.” Today, the same anger and rage areexhibited in Trump’s followers as their idolatry toward their “Fuhrer,” seeing Trump as the “magic helper” who will solve their problems, Making America Great Again. Donald Trump exhibits several characteristics commonly associated with fascism, such as a hyper-masculine culture centered, an aggressive vision of leadership, mocking weakness, a leader cult where loyalty overcomes meritocracy and institutional norms, and followers retaining the leader as the savior against the corrupted elite. His rhetoric on immigrants and “poisoning the blood” of the nation resembles the fascist concept of racial purity. The parallelism may continue through Hitler’s attempted takeover of the Weimar Republic and the campaign of draining “den parlamentarischen Sumpf” (parliamentarian swamp), replacing government officials and replacing them with loyalists, attacking media and minority groups as the “enemy within”. Anyhow, fascism is not a fixed ideology; it adapts to different historical and economic contexts. Today, it may not require a single-party dictatorship but instead operate through algorithmic governance and surveillance, financial monopolization, and erosion of democratic checks. In short, the techno-utopian imaginary of Silicon Valley’s new right reactionary fringes.
“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible” Peter Thiel in 2009
Thiel was the first major figure to publicly declare his support for Trump in 2016 and is nowa central financial backer of the US’s neo-reactionary right. However, Thiel’s complexity deserves its analysis in a future article.
FEDERAL STATES AGAINST FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Trump’s need for adoration and destructive rage at all criticism constitutes a great danger for the US, Trumpism has probably irreparably inflamed the American political scenario. From a polarized country emerge states in open conflict with the federal establishment, acting as semi-autonomous powers; until 2016 the judicial cases filed by at least two states were on average 33 per term, with Trump rise 160 in his first term (mostly by California, New York and Washington) and then 122 with Biden (mostly Texas, Louisiana and Missouri). However, it is important to note that the political colour of the states does not represent the population’s orientation, but instead the culture of the local institutions.
FOUNDER AND HEIR DYNAMIC
Anyhow, the most important aspect of Donald Trump is related to his family, business dynasties, and political families usually follow a founder-successor dynamic, which will explain many of the mechanisms described in the article. Many of Trump’s traits reflect a structural dynamic in power succession, the founder creates and heirs feel compelled to prove their greatness, sometimes leading to authoritarianism. A bold parallelism could be drawn with King Philip II (father and stabilizer) and Alexander the Great (son and conqueror), following this framework Fred Trump (Donald’s father) was the real founder that built Trump’s fortune through sacrifice and hard work in the Real Estate sector, he earned legitimacy and loyalty through concrete results, he had an authentic and grounded leadership, in the same way Philip II organized the military through discipline and strategic planning establishing the famous Macedonian phalanx, he mastered the use of diplomacy and alliances and conquered most of Classical Greece. By contrast, the heir usually starts at the top, feeling the need to assert dominance to compensate for the lack of authority and the pressure to prove themselves by surpassing the founder, often leading to overcompensation or aggression. From a Freudian view, the son lives under the aura of the father, leading to the development of traits of narcissism or insecurity; trust is not built, it is demanded. Alexander the Great showed traits of narcissism and authoritarianism, he was reckless, risk-taking and impulsive without the foundations of his father he wouldn’t have been the famous conqueror he is, in a similar way Donald Trump took big risk and indeed failed multiple times, but still developing similar trait to Alexander, both expanded aggressively driven by ambition and desire for legacy but also exposing everything to potential collapse.
MAGA THROUGH TARIFFS
Trump has always had a controversial approach to negotiating; it consists of never letting the counterpart one–up him; he always raises the stakes until the other stops, reflecting the reckless trait of the “heir”. Then he negotiates back to the original positions, maintaining the upper hand in the process.
Trump’s campaign embodies an intrinsic pessimism by stating that America is not the “great” nation it was decades ago; consequently, the objective is to Make it (America) Great Again. To achieve the MAGA agenda, Trump leverages the United States’ greatest strength: its maritime dominance, therefore, its commercial power. From the article “Trump’s Déjà Vu China Trade War” by Jack Rasmus emerge great similarities between Trump’s first and second terms and previous US presidents. Since his first term, Trump has announced tariffs against allied countries to adjust preexisting trade agreements. In parallel, he pursued a hard line with China, aiming at reducing the United States’ current account deficit with China and limiting technology transfer. By the time it became clear, given all the exemptions, that the real target of Trump’s trade offensive was China and not the rest of the US allies.
“There’s no trade war. All we’re trying to do is protect US technology.”
Larry Kudlow, former director of the National Economic Council, March 2018.
Trump is repeating with China what Nixon did in 1971-1973, targeting European challengers and Regan in 1985, targeting Japan through the Plaza Accord. However, China is a more difficult adversary for the United States in trade negotiations than European countries or Japan. The United States is in a weaker position compared to 1971, and China is not politically or militarily dependent on the American counterpart as European countries or Japan were. Additionally, China dominates rare earth elements and many low-added-value goods. Therefore, a radical shift or diversification from China is unlikely to happen in the short term.
THE SECOND TERM AGENDA AND ITS INCONSISTENCIES
There is a great similarity between Trump’s first and second terms in the applied tariffs and the related “modus operandi”, which reflects a broader alignment between the two agendas. However, this second term appears more radicalized, ideological, and revolutionary, fundamentally reshaping American politics and bypassing democratic norms. Large influence can be attributed to the Claremont Institute, inspired by Leo Strauss and their reading of the Federalist papers, ‘Claremonters’ press for “returning the country to its founding principles”. Their agenda much represents Trump’s one: aggressive foreign policy, reduction in immigration, end to political correctness, but “above all, an appreciation of the titans who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution essential to a fresh era of national greatness”.
Just a few months into Trump’s second term, the United States appears much changed, perhaps irreversibly, both domestically and internationally. Trump’s clash with the federal establishment, the undermining of constitutional norms and rights, and the crackdown on immigration, those factors made the United States an inhospitable place for the visitors whocontribute to the productivity of the country itself; researchers and professors have already started leaving. Additionally, protests have passed from being an “event to be controlled” to an enemy to be militarily crushed – it is a sign of a true democratic crisis.
The sending of troops to Los Angeles a few weeks ago reflects a clear pattern in Trump’s politics: he declares an emergency or a crisis where many others do not see any, which enables him to take radical actions. The same thing happened on “Liberation Day” on April 2, when he declared an economic emergency and imposed tariffs on many other countries. His declaration of “invasion” at the Southern border opened the door to massive deportations. The proclamation of an “energy emergency” justified loosening regulations. It is becoming a “modus operandi” to deceive the democratic process.
What makes things more complicated is that the broad coalition around Trump is fragile and composed of multiple, often conflicting interests, vulnerable to internal fractures. Trump first tries to play on multiple fronts; however, this might jeopardize the stability of his coalition, and Elon Musk is an example, or lead to a zero-sum game where donors benefit from lower taxes and incentives but suffer from tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty, while voters get immigration crackdowns and charming rhetoric but face inflation and cuts in government spending. In any case, Trump’s promises are unlikely to be fulfilled; despite an anti-establishment narrative, he remains aligned with the corporate and financial elite. His administration is filled with neoconservative policymakers, establishment Republicans, and top financial executives. Trump largely campaigned for “free speech,” but then incarcerated or delegitimized those who criticize Israel or his government.
CONCLUSION
Overall, Trump’s phenomenon marks a pivotal point in the United States’ history; the deep-rooted issues and grievances he stokes are significant, signalling a long-term shift in American politics. His style and narrative incite anger and promote polarization and chaos, which threaten the United States’ ability to handle stress tests or crises. Childish political rhetoric, inconsistent statements, unpredictable political decisions, violent and rapid narrative changes, authoritarian praise and gestures—all contribute to a damaged international reputation for the United States. However, Trump is not the cause but the effect; he is the product of economic and social displacement, cultural fragmentation, and past elite failures. While federal institutions showed resilience, especially in Trump’s first term, the politicization of those institutions and the institutionalization of Trumpism might affect the stability of American institutions. The question that now remains to be answered is whether Trumpism will outlast Trump.
REFERENCES
– Johannes Spath, The Rise of Techno- Authoritarianism and its Impact on US Foreign Policy, oiip-Österreichisches Institut für Internationale Politik
– James Curran, “Americanism, not globalism”: President Trump and the American mission, Lowy Institute
– Brigitte L. Nacos, Robert Y. Shapiro, and Yaeli Bloch-Elkon, Donald Trump: Aggressive Rhetoric and Political Violence, Terrorism Research Initiative
– Ofir Dayan , China and the Trump Cabinet 2.0: Between Hawkishness and Interests, Institute for National Security Studies (2024)
– Kenneth Rasmussen, JD Vance, Peter Thiel, and the Silicon Valley Digital Radical Right, Psychohistory Forum Research Associate
– Musk o Trump al bivio, Limes, 12-2024
– L’ordine del caos, Limes, 01-2025
– Jack Rasmus, Trump’s Déjà Vu China Trade War , World Review of Political Economy , Vol. 9, No. 3 (Fall 2018), pp. 346-363, Pluto Journals
– Douglas Kellner, Donald Trump as Authoritarian Populist: A Frommian Analysis, from the bok Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism, University of Westminster Press. (2018)
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Autore dell’articolo*: Leonardo Di Piazza, Undergraduate Student in Economics at Tor Vergata University.
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