Irony of Thucydides for the Trump Team
It seems that Thucydides has become popular among Trump’s foreign policy team. My first instinct of course is to applaud — the great historian’s fine judgment and keen assessments of political and military events has never been surpassed, and his great book well rewards any reader.
Much about Trump’s rise to power has called Thucydides to mind, but not for the reasons the Trump team is reading him. They are studying Thucydides’ analysis of the cause of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, seeing an analogy to China and the U.S. today, with China playing the role of Athens.
Yet it is not Thucydides’ geopolitics, but his caution about the risks and weaknesses of democracy that hold the most direct lessons for today. And it was those very risks and weaknesses, being realized, that brought these Thucydides readers to power.
Thucydides was present at the formative age of democratic government, in its birthplace, Athens, and he warned of the danger that democracy may allow a demagogue to gather in his hands the power of the state. A demagogue: a gifted speaker who stirs the emotions of the population, even though he has neither the temperament nor wisdom needed to guide the state once he reaches power. Even worse, the demagogue, once elevated to power via democracy, can lead the state down misguided paths that ultimately result in bloodshed and ruin, as did Athens’ decision to invade Sicily.
It would be incorrect to say that the great historian was fully opposed to democracy, and he witnessed Pericles, as wise a leader as one could hope for, succeed within democratic politics for an extended time. Yet he also put his finger on the democracy’s biggest vulnerability, which the intervening 2,500 years has not brought any closer to being resolved.
Democracy brings to power the people best at gaining popular support, not those best at governing. And the path to popular support may be paved with fiery oratory, appeal to prejudice and class divisions, three-word slogans, crowd spectacles, and 140-character tweets. Democracy best rewards those who best stimulate the emotions of the crowd.
