Hannah Arendt died in 1975, but it is amazing how the critique of dictators in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism published in 1951 describes the Trump administration and the MAGA movement. Arendt was a German born philosopher who fled the Nazi regime in 1933 after a brief imprisonment because she was a Jew and an intellectual. She is best remembered for her coverage of the 1961 Eichman trial in Israel for a five-part series “Eichmann in Jerusalem” published in The New Yorker magazine. Credit to Paul Krugman for making the connection between Arendt’s work on totalitarianism in Nazi Germany under Hitler and the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin and Donald Trump’s threat to democracy in the United States in a Substack column. For this “interview,” I asked Dr. Arendt a series of questions about Donald Trump and include them with her responses from The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Alan Singer: Dr. Arendt, I am so pleased that you agreed to this interview. It is amazing how current your writing seems when you have been dead for fifty years.
Dr. Arendt: I could not say no to this interview with the deep threat to democracy today. Sadly, history is repeating itself.
Alan Singer: Why does Trump continue to maintain support from his MAGA followers?
Dr. Arendt: “Society is always prone to accept a person offhand for what he pretends to be, so that a crackpot posing as a genius always has a certain chance to be believed . . . Someone who not only holds opinions but also presents them in a tone of unshakable conviction will not so easily forfeit his prestige, no matter how many times he has been demonstrably wrong” (305).
Alan Singer: Why are Trump advisors sycophants who may look good on television but lack any qualifications for the offices they hold?
Dr. Arendt: “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty” (339).
Alan Singer: Why is Trump making war on universities and museums?
Dr. Arendt: “The consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity by the new mass leaders springs from more than their natural resentment against everything they cannot understand. Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life” (339).
Alan Singer: Why is the Trump administration defunding scientific research?
Dr. Arendt: “More specific in totalitarian propaganda, however, than direct threats and crimes against individuals is the use of indirect, veiled, and menacing hints against all who will not heed its teachings . . . The obsession of totalitarian regimes with ‘scientific’ proofs ceases once they are in power. The Nazis dismissed even those scholars who were willing to serve them” (345).
Alan Singer: Why do MAGA and Trump attack people they imagine are domestic and foreign threats?
Dr. Arendt: “Tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by a world of enemies . . . that a fundamental difference exists between this people and others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies . . . the very possibility of a common mankind” (227). “The Nazis wanted to conquer the world, deport ‘racially alien’ peoples and exterminate those of ‘inferior biological heritage” (378).
Alan Singer: Trump claimed he would deport undocumented immigrants who are criminals, so why is ICE targeting people who have been law abiding and hard working community residents?
Dr. Arendt: “The possible crime is no more subjective than the objective enemy. While the suspect is arrested because he is thought capable of committing a crime that more or less fits his personality or his suspected personality” (426). “Guilt and innocence become senseless notions; ‘guilty’ is he who stands in the way of the natural or historical process which has passed judgment over ‘inferior races,’ over individuals ‘unfit to live’” (465).
The New York Times shares some of these same concerns about Trump and the U.S. shift towards authoritarianism. An editorial on Sunday, November 2, 2025, argued that “Countries that slide from democracy toward autocracy tend to follow similar patterns.” To document “how much Americans have already lost and how much more we still could lose,” the Times “compiled a list of 12 markers of democratic erosion” and showed how actions by the Trump administration are hastening the United States down an authoritarian path.
No.1 An authoritarian stifles dissent and speech.
No.2 An authoritarian persecutes political opponents.
No.3 An authoritarian bypasses the legislature.
No.4 An authoritarian uses the military for domestic control.
No.5 An authoritarian defies the courts.
No.6 An authoritarian declares national emergencies on false pretenses.
No.7 An authoritarian vilifies marginalized groups.
No.8 An authoritarian controls information and the news media.
No.9 An authoritarian tries to take over universities.
No.10 An authoritarian creates a cult of personality.
No.11 An authoritarian uses power for personal profit.
No.12 An authoritarian manipulates the law to stay in power.
