A Revolution Has No Allies

J. D. Vance delivers a seismic geopolitical speech at the Munich Security Forum. Vance, Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy get into a shouting match before television cameras. Relations between the United States and Europe are deteriorating before our very eyes. In one of our best episodes of the year so far, we invited the great Ivan Krastev to help us understand what is happening.

Ivan is one of the brightest minds in Europe — an incisive analyst, historian of ideas, and ever-present track-two diplomat who is always talking to absolutely everyone. He is chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria and Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He writes regularly for the Financial Times and the New York Times.

Ivan tells Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic that Trumpism, and its policy toward Europe is not conservative or isolationist, but “a revolutionary movement.” This revolution is what reconciles the populist and libertarian elements of Trump’s administration: “You’re trying to fight bureaucracy by concentrating power in a charismatic leader. Less state, more emperor.” You can see this, Ivan argues, in the way Trump runs his coalition like an imperial court, where opposing figures — like Steve Bannon and Elon Musk — vie for the attention of the emperor. You can also see it in the fact that Trump himself says contradictory things: “A charismatic figure can contain contradictions.”

What does this mean for Europe? “Empires fall when the center sees itself as a hostage not as a hegemon,” Ivan argues, and Trump, along with Republicans, long to divest themselves of the Empire. This means applying pressure on Europe to bend to its demands — be it about Ukraine, or Greenland, or immigration. It also means that, inadvertently, Trump has reawakened European nationalism: “The new European politics is nationalist, the populists are internationalist.”

This is a rich episode, full of insightful koans from a longtime observer of international affairs. Damir takes the conversation in the direction of what exactly fuels the Right and its “enthusiasm for destruction.” Shadi presses Ivan on the recently overturned elections in Romania, and what this means about the future of European democracy.

In our bonus section for paid subscribers, the three men discuss why charismatic political leaders can live with contradictions; the “fast track between [political] office and prison”; how Trump has inadvertently created a new US-European consensus on immigration and state intervention in the economy, and why “you can’t stop a revolution by defending institutions. You need your own version of tomorrow.”

Required Reading and Viewing:

* J. D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Forum (Foreign Policy).

* Zelenskyy, Trump and Vance press conference (C-Span YouTube page).

* Ivan Krastev and Leonard Benardo, “Democracy Has Run Out of Future” (Foreign Policy).

* Shadi Hamid, “Why Half of America is Cheering for Chaos” (Washington Post).

* “EU parliament votes to condemn overturning of Roe v. Wade” (Axios).

* German Revolution of 1918-1919 (Brittanica).

* Leo Strauss, “German Nihilism” (archive.org).

* Daniel Kehlmann, German writer (Wikipedia).

* “The Gender Gap is Growing and it Bodes Badly for American Politics and Culture” (The Hill).

* 2024 Romanian Elections (Wikipedia).

* Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized (Amazon).

* Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991 (Amazon).

* N.S. Lyons, “American Strong Gods: Trump and the End of the Long Twentieth Century” (The Upheaval).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.