Source: Persuasion
by Francis Fukuyama
“On the occasion of the Trump administration’s first 100 days, there has been a welter of articles detailing the range of truly awful policies he has sought to enact. … Rather than cataloguing this list of abuses, it may be more useful to consider what motives lie behind them. Since the early days of the first Trump term, a minor industry has grown up trying to put his thoughts and actions into something like a coherent intellectual framework: he is a nationalist, a populist, an isolationist, an imperialist, a postliberal, a nativist, and so on. … The most useful framework in my opinion is psychology, both personal and social. Trumpism is basically a mentality drenched in what Nietzsche labeled ressentiment, that is, acute resentment of others based on wounded pride, perceived disregard, fears of inadequacy, and a desire to exact revenge on those who had earlier failed to pay adequate respect.” (04/30/25)