The return of Donald Trump to power in the United States has represented an unprecedented and deeply disturbing turn in contemporary political history. His authoritarian leadership not only revitalized xenophobic nationalism and the abuse of power within U.S. borders but also projected, once again, a destructive approach in foreign policy.
Promises of peace — ending the war in Ukraine, halting the crisis in Gaza, or de-escalating tensions with Iran — failed utterly. Instead, the Trump administration has solidified alliances with openly repressive regimes, even tolerating war crimes and normalizing hate speech in the international public sphere.
Trump is not just a demagogue but also the modern epitome of what philosopher Hannah Arendt called the “banality of evil,” that phenomenon where extreme cruelty does not stem from exceptional monstrosity but from the arrogant mediocrity of someone blindly following rules without reflection, trapped in the mechanical logic of domination. Arendt coined the phrase “banality of evil” after attending the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi bureaucrat who organized the logistics of the Holocaust. Far from being a fanatic sadist, Eichmann appeared as a mediocre official, convinced he was “doing his duty.”
Trump, for his part, represents a different but related banality: that of power transformed into spectacle, despotism disguised as leadership. His contempt for truth, systematic racism, and disregard for the human consequences of his decisions make him a deeply dangerous leader. Today, one need not imagine gas chambers to talk about genocide; it is enough to observe his explicit complicity with Benjamin Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing policies in Gaza, where the Israeli military machine has destroyed thousands of lives under the discourse of “self-defense” and with Washington’s silence or approval.
The case of Ukraine is equally alarming. Trump’s promise to “end the war in 24 hours” was, from the start, a farce. Not only did he fail to contribute to a diplomatic solution, but he weakened international support for Kyiv, strengthening Putin’s arguments instead. Likewise, rather than de-escalate conflicts with Iran, he intensified bombings and encouraged confrontation, rehashing the failed script of U.S. interventionism in the Middle East.
But the most worrying aspect was not his geopolitical failure. What is truly disturbing is how evil becomes acceptable when presented with a red tie and rhetoric of greatness. Trump’s logic is not that of a Machiavellian strategist but of a fanatic convinced of his moral and racial superiority. It is that boundless arrogance which recalls the worst moments of the 20th century. When Arendt spoke about Eichmann, she warned that the most dangerous evil is not the one proclaimed as such, but the one executed with stupid bureaucratic obedience and ideological justification. Today, in Trump’s figure, that evil is reconfigured as emotional populism, where indifference to others' suffering is disguised as patriotic pragmatism.
American democracy, by allowing this character’s return, has revealed its structural fragility. It is no longer about the alternation of power within a healthy system but about the moral collapse of a nation that has replaced debate with insult, law with force, and truth with propaganda.
The Trump case is not just an internal problem for the United States. It is a global warning that history does not move in a straight line. Fascism no longer needs boots or uniforms, as it is enough to have a social media account and the uncritical applause of the masses. The banality of evil today smiles at rallies, takes pictures with dictators, and promises greatness while fueling chaos.
The data confirms this. According to the latest report from the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem, 2025), the United States has dropped several places in the Liberal Democracy Index, ranking behind countries such as Uruguay or Estonia. The report warns of an alarming regression in respect for civil rights, judicial autonomy, and press freedom, labeling the U.S. as an “electoral autocracy at risk of hardening into authoritarianism.” This deterioration aligns with the institutional erosion promoted by Trump: systematic attacks on judges, open threats against political opponents, and a culture of impunity that normalizes the use of power for personal revenge.
Faced with this reality, great theorists of American democracy — such as Robert Dahl, author of Who Governs?, and Samuel Huntington, who studied political order in changing societies — would today be horrified. Dahl, a defender of polyarchy, believed in an open system with fair competition among elites and real citizen participation. Huntington, though more conservative, warned of the danger of deinstitutionalization as a prelude to chaos. Both would see in Trump’s rise not just a political anomaly but a historical betrayal of the American democratic experiment. Probably renouncing their citizenship, they would warn that what was once considered a “model” is now dangerously close to a tasteless pantomime and an institutional dystopia, completely destructive.
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