Eros and Trumpism: A Marcusean Interpretation

Civilization, Freud (1930/1961) famously argued, is characterized by the manner in which the relationships of men to one another, their social relationships, are regulated—relationships which affect a person as a neighbour, as a source of help, as another person's sexual object, as a member of a family and of a State. (pp. 41-42)

If no attempt was made to regulate these social relationships, he continued, they would be “subject to the arbitrary will of the individual: that is to say, the physically stronger man would decide them in the sense of his own interests and instinctual impulses.” The “decisive step of civilization,” then, is the “replacement of the power of the individual by the power of a community,” which “set[s itself] up as ‘right.’” In this way, “the members of the community restrict themselves in their possibilities of satisfaction” (p. 42). The “development of civilization” thus “imposes restrictions” on the “liberty of the individual,” and “justice demands that no one shall escape those restrictions” (pp. 42-43).

From the beginning of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and throughout his four chaotic years in the White House, he seemed to personify discontent with, and even outright revolt against, the strictures of civilization. Reflecting on the significance of Trump's presidency at its end (the owl of Minerva flies at dusk), the presidential historian David Greenberg (2021) suggested that “the deliberate breakdown of rules” is “what Trump's presidency was all about.” From Trump's sex

scandals and sexual assaults, constant petty insults of real or perceived rivals, nepotism, self-dealing, compulsive mendacity, contempt for expertise, disrespect for the professionalism and independence of civil servants, disregard for expected presidential behavior and the higher callings of his office, and disregard for tradition, custom, and established practices to his impatience with the democratic process, abuse of power, obstruction of Con