Is Donald Trump a Demagogue?

Many epithets have been hurled at Donald Trump. The usually decorous New York Times writer David Brooks, speaking on the PBS News Hour, called Trump “a gross human being.” Washington Post writer Michael Gerson, also speaking on the News Hour, said of Trump that he is “vile, vulgar, vicious and morally deformed.” Lately, Stephen Colbert and others have tagged him a “demagogue.” The Atlantic recently ran an article examining the notion that Trump is a demagogue and a threat to democracy.

Demagogues advocate ruthless wars

Backing up a little to look at what “demagogue” really means, we find that it comes from two Greek words: demos (which means “the people”) and agogos (which means “leading”). A demagogue was, more particularly, a leader who appealed to the emotions, fears, anxieties, prejudices, and ignorance of the common people from the lower socioeconomic classes. In other words, demagogues found their support among the lowest common denominator of society.

Demagogues tended to advocate wars--particularly ruthless wars. For example, the Athenian demagogue Cleon, a political leader who emerged from the commercial class, was generally considered to be a demagogue. The philosopher Aristotle said Cleon was the first leader to shout and use abusive language on his campaign platform. Cleon tried to incite the Athenians to pursue tactics of a particularly vicious sort. When there was a revolt in the city of Mytilene, he advocated that Athens should take ruthless measures. He not only wanted to put to death Mytilenean prisoners of war, but also argued for killing every man in the city and enslaving their wives and children.

This notion of taking vengeance not only on soldiers but also on their families sounds eerily familiar from last Tuesday’s Republican debate. Fortunately, when the Athenian political leaders had time to reflect on Cleon’s resolution, they decided that it was too ruthless and rescinded it. Hopefully, the barbaric notion of retaliating on our enemies' wives and children will not be taken seriously by our more responsible and reflective leaders.

Demagogue Joseph McCarthy

Demagogues have been thought to be dangerous to democracies from ancient times. The Atlantic article says: “Demagogues undermine the stability of a ‘by the people’ form of government particularly by turning ‘the people’ against each other. They represent a danger not just to electoral outcomes or political parties, but to democracy itself.”

A well-known American demagogue was Joseph McCarthy, a senator from Wisconsin from 1947 to 1957. McCarthy played on peoples’ fears and anxieties about the imminent dangers of Communism in the 1950’s and sowed divisiveness among Americans. McCarthy fell from popularity when his claims did not bear up to fact checking.

History repeats itself as farce

Marx famously said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and the second time as farce. McCarthy’s witch hunting certainly resulted in tragedy for many of those he accused. But the current epithets of Trump as “clown,” “buffoon,” and even “baboon” make Marx’s pronouncement especially relevant today.