The best description of the Trump phenomenon appeared before he was even born. It is rare for a masterpiece to begin a new life at eighty years old, but classics have no age. On August 17, 1945, the brilliant Animal Farm was published in London, translated into Portuguese as O Triunfo dos Porcos. George Orwell’s book is explicitly an allegory of Stalinism, as is his other seminal work Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). In that sense, the text could have been confined to the horrors of the first half of the twentieth century. However, unlike that period, the first fable contains a flexibility that allows it to be applied to other realities; the year 2025 has given it renewed relevance.
There is no doubt that the narrative closely follows the case of the Soviet Union; yet the author himself suggests applying it to other situations; after all, the tyrant is named Napoleon. In this way, the parable illuminates a wide range of realities. First, Stalinism still endures in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, Díaz-Canel’s Cuba, Maduro’s Venezuela, and after the interruption following Mao’s death, in Xi Jinping’s China. But the description can also apply to regimes with very different inspirations, from Khamenei’s Iran to Erdoğan’s Turkey and, ironically, Putin’s Russia. Far more unexpected and disturbing is finding today traces of Animal Farm in the country that most opposed the USSR and made the greatest use of Orwell’s fable as an argument.
Is the Trump Administration Stalinist? Certainly not. In fact, it lacks a fundamental element: a guiding ideology, like Soviet Marxism and its porcine variant, Animalism. Trump has no doctrine, only whims. The current Republican Party, one of the oldest and most respected political formations in history, home to Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, and Eisenhower, is today reduced to a sounding board for pathological extravagances. Nevertheless, rereading the small volume, it is frightening to find growing parallels with the MAGA movement.
The first and most decisive similarity is the supreme arrogance of those who consider themselves in possession of indisputable certainties that no one else holds. This is how enlightened and infallible governance is ensured. In this regard, reality is, if anything, more extreme than fiction. In the book, it is the loyal horse Boxer who invents the slogan “Napoleon is always right” (ch. 5); in real life, Trump himself repeats this openly and obsessively about himself, long before entering politics. He never admits a mistake and alters any evidence to fit his vision. Thus, as in the fable, one quickly falls into a fantasy realm where facts matter little. Realities are denied, rules violated, agreements torn up, institutions manipulated, arbitrary and self-destructive tariffs imposed, corruption carried out unabashedly, all with the greatest boldness and audacity. Anyone who dares to react is, as in the book, declared an enemy of the people and a supporter of the abhorred Snowball, the Soviet Trotsky, now Joe Biden.
The second element, a consequence of the first, is an equally supreme disregard for life and human dignity; for all people, even supporters, when they dare to think. Humanitarian aid is cut without regard for deaths in the poorest areas; troops invade American cities, provided they are in opposition states; the healthcare system is threatened without credible alternatives, even in Republican states; immigrants are considered and treated as “trash,” and unarmed ships and even shipwrecked people are bombarded in the name of the “war on drugs.” At the same time, the president considers himself deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.
If the similarities are terrible, the differences are even more disconcerting. In the work, much of the plot describes the long process from the seventh and final commandment of Animalism, “All animals are equal” (ch. 2), to the supreme hypocrisy of the book’s most famous phrase: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” (ch. 10). This development has no parallel in the American situation, since Trump never admitted the original principle. His attitude, which cannot be called a doctrine for lack of elaboration or justification, is an overbearing, discriminatory elitism.
How is it possible that millions of citizens voted for this regime and many still support it today? Here again Orwell’s book provides the key to the mystery: humanity’s oldest temptation, to play God. These situations always begin with grand projects, grand ideas. The dream of liberation and a “golden age” justifies all sacrifices, which the tyrant exploits. Corruptio optimi est pessima. This is the heart of the process: “[The donkey] Benjamin (…) said that God had given him a tail to swat flies, but that he would rather have neither tail nor flies” (ch. 1). The personality of the despot merely gives exterior color to the process: militaristic in Hitler, cold and cruel in Stalin, devout in Khamenei. In the time and place of Hollywood and Wall Street, it had to be a millionaire comedian.
João César das Neves, Professor at CATÓLICA-LISBON