Trump

by Alain Badiou

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States sent shockwaves across the globe. How was such an outcome even possible? In two lectures given at American universities in the immediate aftermath of the election, the leading French philosopher Alain Badiou helps us to make sense of this extraordinary occurrence. He argues that Trump's victory was the symptom of a global crisis made up of four the triumph of a brutal form of global capitalism, the decomposition of the established political elite, the growing frustration and disorientation that many people feel today, and the absence of a compelling alternative vision. It was in this context that Trump could emerge as a new kind of political figure that was both inside and outside the political order, a member of the Republican Party who, at the same time, represents something outside the system. The progressive political challenge now is to create something new that offers people a real choice, a radical alternative based on principles of universality and equality. This concise account of the meaning of Trump should be read by everyone who wants to understand what is happening in our world today.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, History, Sociology, Economics, France

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Alain Badiou, Ph.D., born in Rabat, Morocco in 1937, holds the Rene Descartes Chair at the European Graduate School EGS. Alain Badiou was a student at the École Normale Supérieure in the 1950s. He taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) from 1969 until 1999, when he returned to ENS as the Chair of the philosophy department. He continues to teach a popular seminar at the Collège International de Philosophie, on topics ranging from the great 'antiphilosophers' (Saint-Paul, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan) to the major conceptual innovations of the twentieth century. Much of Badiou's life has been shaped by his dedication to the consequences of the May 1968 revolt in Paris. Long a leading member of Union des jeunesses communistes de France (marxistes-léninistes), he remains with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel at the center of L'Organisation Politique, a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues (including immigration, labor, and housing). He is the author of several successful novels and plays as well as more than a dozen philosophical works.

Trained as a mathematician, Alain Badiou is one of the most original French philosophers today. Influenced by Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze, he is an outspoken critic of both the analytic as well as the postmodern schools of thoughts. His philosophy seeks to expose and make sense of the potential of radical innovation (revolution, invention, transfiguration) in every situation.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gangster Politics

Trump consists of two academic lectures given by Badiou in the days immediately following the US elections. Like many others, he was shocked and distressed that “the vulgar and incoherent billionaire” could become the president of the most powerful nation on the planet. And like at least a few others, he attempts to articulate the significance of this event - how it came about and what it implies.

As befits a philosopher, Badiou is not a man of statistics. But he does employ one statistic in both lectures as the factual base for his analysis: “we must recognize that, today, 264 people possess as much wealth, in inheritance and income, as the 7 billion others who make up the rest of the world!” His point is not that these 264 people, or their slightly less wealthy friends, have somehow bought the election result. Rather he uses it to point out the absolute and incontrovertible victory of global capitalism which is, he believes, the lynchpin of the Trump victory.

Badiou echoes Thomas Piketty’s 2014 Capital in the Twenty First Century when he refers to, “the fundamental law of capitalism, namely the process of capital’s concentration.” This law not only operates in every country on the planet, it is a law that the government of every one of these countries is committed to enforcing. This he describes as the context of “the politics of no alternative.” As the regime of capitalism is global, so are its effects on the global political structure. A sort of “democratic fascism” has emerged simultaneously around the world.

The commonality in the leadership as diverse as China and France, and India and Hungary, not forgetting the USA, Russia, and North Korea is that they are all thugs. This is an essential consequence for managing the severe inequalities that capitalism will continue to generate. Trump is merely the American version of Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Orban, Putin, Modi and a dozen others whose primary mission is to stave off civil war for as long as possible.

These leaders have this rather narrow role because there is literally no alternative to the capitalism that has swept all before it. Communism is dead. Even moderate Socialism is déclassé. And theoretical Marxism is a mere intellectual antique. Consequently the “great historical hope for a just society, a hope that remained steadfast from 1792 to 1976” is no more. The idea of an increasingly fair society based on private property and individual enterprise is now dead. The property and the enterprise remain; but justice is no longer their aim.

Badiou can’t suggest an alternative to the current crisis. The best he can do is to hope for some sort of revival of the historical debate. This seems to me far less likely than the civil wars from which some new form of politics might emerge. So the message implicit in these lectures seems to be: ‘If you think Trump is your worst nightmare, you ain’t seen nothing yet.’

[Seyed Hashemi · Rating 2 out of 5]

کلی‌اندیشی به سبک بدیو؛
مسئله‌های یکسان، صورت‌بندی‌های مختلف


0- بدیو در این کتاب از بررسی یک «ضدرخداد» حرف می‌زند؛ از سیاستمداری که آشفته‌گوست و «باید تصدیق کنیم که ترامپ فی‌نفسه چیزی است مبهم و نه به‌واقع جالب [برای بررسیدن]».

1- مسئلۀ بدیو واضح است، چرخش به راست سیاست جهانی/غرب و ظهور اعجوبه‌های چون ترامپ، سارکوزی و دیگر احزاب دست راستی در دنیا، از موضوعات مهمی است که باید مورد تحلیل قرار بگیرد. برای بدیو ترامپ «دردنشان/symptom» سیستمی جهان‌گیر است که سرمایه‌داریِ لیبرال نام دارد. بدیو که از معدود کسانی است که امروزه روز به صورت عیان از کمونیسم می‌گوید، ترامپ را در این بستر کلیِ معضلات سرمایه‌داری در سطح جهانی می‌داند. خیلی بر روی جزئیاتِ این ماجرا حرفی برای گفتن نیست که بعید است بتوانم میان فهمِ خود با بدیو، فصل مشترکی را برای بحثِ مشترک پیدا کنم، بلکه می‌خواهم به نقد سطحِ بالای «کلیت‌بخشی» در اندیشۀ بدیو بپردازم.

2- اینکه امور را در بستر کلیت‌ها فهم کنیم به نظر لاجرم است. چه آگاهانه باشد چه نباشد، بعید است تفکری پیدا شود که ذیلِ کلیاتی که یا خود تعریف کرده است یا عده‌ای از بیرون آن کلیت را بر اندیشه قالب زده اند به مفهوم‌پردازی نبپردازد و تمام اندیشه‌ها در بستر کلیت‌ها معناداریِ خود را یافت می‌کنند. اما این دلیل نمی‌شود که امور جزئی اندیشه به پای کلیت‌ها سلاخی شوند؛ تفکری که آگاهانه به دنبالِ کلیت‌بخشی است، آبستنِ چنین سلاخیِ ماهرانه‌ای‌ست. بدیو نیز به عنوان متفکری شجاع که در عصری که همگی از «مرگ کلان روایت‌ها» و ایده‌های کلی گوشمان پر شده است، از اهمیت امور کلی حرف می‌زند، در خطر این کلانِ معضلِ «سر به نیست کردن امور جزئی در پای امور کلی» است.

3- بدیو به عنوان متفکری که به صورت واضح ربط خود به اندیشه‌های مارکسیستی را بیان می‌کند، فهمی که از ترامپ و برآمدن راستِ جدید را در سیاست جهان دارد را، در بسترِ کلی‌تر معضلات یا وجه مشخصه‌های نظمِ سرمایه‌داری فهم می‌کند. یعنی ترامپ برای بدیو زمانی معنادار است که آن را در جریان کلیِ سرمایه در جهان، منافع سرمایه‌داران و «دولت به مثابۀ حارث سرمایه‌داری» فهم کند. یعنی «ضدرخداد»ی بنام ترامپ برای بدیو این چنین است که معنادار است، ترامپ «دردنشان» امری کلی بنام سرمایه‌داری‌ست. در این نحو از بررسی، بدیو به صورت به‌نسبه سازگار در درونِ گفتمانِ نظریِ چپی که طلایه‌دار آن است به نقد ترامپ می‌پردازد؛ اما از بزرگترین مشکلات بدیو همین است که حداقل تلاشی برای خروج از زمینۀ گفتمانی خود نمی‌کند. برای نقدِ رویکردی دیگر، اگر مبنای بحث را رویکرد و نگاهِ خود به عالم و آدم قرار بدهیم و به صورت بیرونی نسبت به وضعیت مورد نقد به نقد آن وضعیت بپردازیم، در بهترین حالت آب در هاون کوبیده ایم. طبعا هیچ‌گاه خروجِ محض از موضع خود و قرارگیری در موضع مقابل، برای هیچ‌کس ممکن نیست، اما این دلیل نمی‌شود که بدین جهت حداقل تلاشی نکنیم. اما مشکلِ کلیت‌بخشی به این مورد ختم نمی‌شود.

4- از بغرنج‌ترین مسائلِ فلسفۀ علم را می‌توانم در نسبتِ بینِ «نظریه» و «مشاهده» پیدا کرد. به بیانی، هر نگاهی به عالم، «باری» نظری بر خود دارد و هیچ‌نگاهِ بی‌طرفِ مطلقِ منفک از نظریه وجود ندارد؛ اما این بدان معنا نیست که به سلاخی مشاهده به پای نظریه بنشینیم. زمانی که اندیشه‌ای به دنبالِ کلیت‌بخشی در خود باشد (در این بررسی، بدیو به دنبال فهمِ ترامپ در کلیتِ فهمِ خود از جهانِ امروزِ سرمایه‌دارانه است)، بیشتر خطر «سلاخیِ مشاهده به پای نظریه» را به‌ جان می‌خرد.
اما در نهایت، بدیو به دنبالِ فهمِ جهانی است که در آن برآمدنِ ضدرخدادی چون ترامپ «ممکن» شده است. بحثِ در شرایطِ امکانِ ظهور ترامپ و پدیده‌هایی چون اوست.

5- از موارد مورد توجه در تحلیل بدیو دوگانه‌ای‌ست که میانِ ترامپ و «سیاست‌مدارِ کلاسیکِ اهلِ بورژوآزی فرهیخته» می‌سازد. این همان دوگانه‌ای‌ست که بسیاری با آن پوپولیسم ترامپ را تصویر کرده اند؛ ترامپ خلاف‌آمدِ جریانِ مرسومِ نخبگانِ سیاسی جامعه است با رفتارهایی مشخصا پوپولیستی (اینجا پوپولیسم به معنای ناسزای سیاسی مورد بحث نیست. برای مطالعۀ بیشتر کتابِ «پوپولیسم چیست» از مولر گزینۀ خوبی است)، ژستِ مخالفِ جریان غالب بودن را به خود می‌گیرد که برای جمعیت سرخوردۀ جامعه خود کالایی خریدنی است.

6- در جایی از مباحث، واقعا حرفی به نسبت بدیع را از بدیو خواندم که شروعی بود بر تحلیلِ «زبانِ» ترامپ که به غایت می‌تواند محلِ تحلیل باشد برای فهمیدنِ این امرنافهمیدنیِ سیاست امروز آمریکا. این برداشت از زبانِ ترامپ که «دیگر هدفِ زبان، توضیح یا دفاع از دیدگاهی به شیوه‌ای روشن و رسا نیست؛ بلکه تولید عواطفی است که به کار ایجاد وحدتی بیاید که به شکلِ گذرا نیرومند باشد»، بسیار ملموس و قابل فهم است. از توئیت‌ها و اظهارات او در هم‌دستیِ مستقیم در تهاجم اسرائیل به ایران به راحتی می‌توان این مورد را درک کرد. هدف ترامپ بیانِ واضح موضعِ خود نیست، بلکه هدفِ او تاثیرگذاشتن بر خریداران داخلی حرف‌هایش و تاثیرِ عاطفی گذاشتن بر مخاطبین غیرداخلی حرف‌هایش (مثلا مردم ایران) است. این نحو از به بازی گرفتنِ زبان توسط ترامپ در این زمانه، جای تامل دارد!

7- یکی از مباحثی که بدیو بسیار تکرار می‌کند، یکه‌تازی نظم سرمایه‌داریِ لیبرال از آن حیث است که دیگر بدیلی ندارد. به علت شکستِ کمونیسم در قرن بیست، سرمایه‌داریِ لیبرال دیگر لازم نیست بر مناسب بودنِ خود پافشاری کند، بلکه همین که بر «سیاست بدون بدیل» بودنِ خود تاکید کند، کافی است. یعنی نظمِ سرمایه‌داری اذعان دارد که کامل نیست، اما چون بدیلی برای آن وجود ندارد، گردنِ نهادنِ به سرمایه‌داری را ضروری می‌کند. بدین جهت است که بدیو باری دیگر سوالِ مشهورِ لنین که «چه باید کرد؟» را می‌پرسد.

8- بدیو در جایی از متن بحثی نظری در ذاتِ دولت و نحوۀ تعامل تضادها در درون دولت بود که به نظرم بسیار قابل توجه بود و صورت‌بندیِ بدیو از بحث را دقیق و خوب یافتم.

9- در پایانِ آخرینِ سخنرانیِ این کتاب، بدیو بحث‌هایی را پیش کشید که از اول متن دنبال آن بودم. بیانِ ایده‌های رادیکالی که باید از دهنِ بدیو شنیده شود. ببنید، بدیویی که به دنبال ایده‌های کلی‌ست و با تصویری که سرمایه‌داری از «بی‌بدیل»بودن خود ساخته است، باید رادیکال‌ترین ایده‌های ممکن را تخیل کند. در این وضعیت، اندیشه‌هایی چون اندیشه‌های بدیو باید به قوۀ خیال بازگردند که از این مسیر امکانِ اندیشیدن به بدیل‌های برای نظمِ غالبِ امروزه را ایجاد کنند. ایده‌های رادیکالِ بدیو از جمله عدمِ اهمیتِ مرزهای سیاسی و «سیاست هویت»، عدم نیاز به دولت و مواردی از این دست است که مشخص است رادیکال بودنِ این ایده‌ها.


خلاصه که اینجوریاست!

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short and sweet. The basic thesis is that Herr Trump is a symptom rather than a disease. The disease is global capitalism, of course.

Some good comments about the significance of the 2016 election in the US, as well as about the principles that the left should endorse going forward from that point.

Definitely has a great moment, in its opening, an argument for left stoicism: "at first was the triumph of affects: depression, fear, panic, etc. But philosophy teaches us that none of these affects is in any way a good response, for they instead testify and even pay tribute, negatively and from our side, to the victory of the enemy." Good to recall that nothing worthwhile happens from losing one's cool in politics.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good on you, Alain. This book started with a profound worry. Our Alain - following in the Paul Virilio school of publishing later in life - has written another very (very very very) short book.

Upon opening, it was clear our Alain had delivered two lectures in the two weeks after Donald Trump's election victory. This book was created from those two lectures.

Danger, Will Robinson. Danger.

But the book is a ripper. Short. Pithy. Most sentences are quotable, useful and powerful. The dangers of vulgar, extreme capitalism are presented. The volatility of Trump's positioning in the 'establishment' is also clear. Badiou does not demonize or prioritize Trump as a figure. Instead - magnificent philosopher that he is - Badiou probes what Trump means in understanding contemporary capitalism.

Beautifully written, the argument is well crafted. A short book. A quick read. Very, very worthwhile. Keep 'em coming, Alain.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief but interesting

This is essentially two speeches given by Badiou just after the election of Donald Trump: it places Trump as a pseudo-choice between elites in neoliberal capitalism and explores how even "communist" countries today protect the cores of economic power in a way that makes spectacular appealing in democracies. Laying Trump out in a world context, Badiou sees him as a sign for a new alternative to broad post-USSR consensus. Good and insightful, but brief.

[Lia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the title, this book is not about Trump. We have a problem, and Trump is just the symptom. It’s clever to set up your expectation only to frustrate it, but then you also realize you have had enough of Trump already, so this frustrated expectation is inconsequential, what is more, you realize Trump himself is inconsequential.

That’s what I like about this short little book. It’s belittles the self-aggrandizing troll with wits.

But then it went downhill from there: the system is the problem, economic injustice, capitalism seen as only viable, least bad option, plights of those suffering real and immediate injustice invisible to us ... we need something new, really new. That is, we need communism, Badiou exclaims. (I suppose regular readers of Badiou are not surprised by this “twist”.)

No Badiou, we do not need communism, communism isn’t the answer, it won’t be better this time, and no, communism isn’t really new, and was never non-violent or anything less than inhuman and catastrophic. I enjoyed the set up, I’m left feeling like I’ve been tricked, I did not sign up for another sales pitch for communism.

[Mark Fulk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a powerful and important book that every American should read, given the current political climate and the rise of what Badiou rightly labels (and describes) as "capitalist" or "democratic fascism" in America and Europe. Badiou is perceptive and prophetic, although I feel he gives Secretary Clinton's campaign and ideas too short-shrift. His humble suggestions of a tentative way forward, out of this fascist muck, are worthy our reflection and action.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

“And so perhaps, today, the democratic system everywhere in the world, not only here in the United States, is moving from two dispositions – two big parties and their respective alternatives – to four dispositions. In other words, we have not only these two [Republicans and Democrats], but also two other differences [Trump and Sanders, corresponding to the true contradiction between fascism and communism, their respective representational versions in the middle being Republicans and Democrats].”

As you can see, it's not terribly compelling, it's weird that Badiou's carries so much water for Sanders in this book and that probably speaks a lot to his politics today (I'd agree that the contradiction btwn sanders and trump is important, but that doesn't entail lionizing sanders...). That there's a crisis of the "traditional bourgeois political oligarchy," and a crisis of middle-class subjectivity, I'd agree with. But the fact that Badiou glazes over Trump's white settler/labor aristocratic mass base (there's not that much class analysis at all for some reason here) is a huge oversight (makes me want to read the Bellamy Foster book). Anyways most of the book is good if not surface level for anyone interested in what’s really compelling about Trump (his base). My profs say that in person he's a sweet old man so I probably shouldn't hate.

also graphs lol


interesting quotes:

"History is a great corruption of everything that is present in history itself."

“Preparing the ground for this new beginning, leaving the counter-revolution that has been dominating us for the last forty years, creating the conditions for a return to a fundamental choice between two paths – all this is the true essence of politics today. When there is only one path, only one strategic orientation, politics, in reality, gradually disappears. Trump is the symbol of this sort of disappearance. What are Trump’s “politics”? Nobody knows, for Trump is a figure, a character, rather than a politics. The return of politics is the return to the existence of a fundamental choice.
In sum, at the level of philosophical generality, we can say this: the essential political gesture, today, is the return of dialectics, which is to say, the return to the real Two, beyond the deceptive One. On every issue, we must be the shrewd and tenacious activists of this return.”

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, this is very minor Badiou. Just a transcript of a couple speeches he gave in 2016. As you'd expect, he refuses to become fascinated by Trump and instead reads him as a symptom of this broken world. That means a lot of his points have been made similarly elsewhere. But there's a nice urgency and clarity here.

Have to say, too, that his thoughts and thoughtful answers in the Q&A hold up pretty damn well. You can see a lot of the dynamics he predicted played out as he predicted. And some of his dark warnings still apply too.

[Tirdad · Rating 3 out of 5]

پیام اصلی بدیو در هردو سخنرانی این است که باید در برابر این جزم که «گزینهٔ دیگری جز سرمایه‌داری جهانی موجود نیست» ایستاد. وی با اشاره به دوقطبیِ ناکارآمد موجود چپ-راست، راه حل را در پیگیری جریان سومی می‌داند که مبتنی بر آرمان‌های اصیل انسانی در ایدهٔ کومونیسم باشد. هرچند راه حل انضمامی خاصی ارائه نمی‌دهد.

[Stefano Solventi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Due conferenze di Badiou che risalgono ai tempi della prima elezione di Trump. Mi aspettavo una vena analitica più sottile, molti concetti sono abbastanza scontati. Comunque, vale la pena leggerlo anche solo per passaggi come questo, che in pratica fanno emergere il motivo per cui sta accadendo ciò che sta accadendo in questi giorni:

"Il motivo dell’emergere di figure come Trump, Berlusconi e via dicendo, va dunque ricercato nel fatto che il sistema politico oggi non è in grado di controllare gli effetti del capitalismo globalizzato. Il capitalismo globalizzato non può avere alcun riguardo verso stati e nazionalità. Non è un suo problema. (...) oggi c’è una contraddizione fra il campo della politica e quello dell’organizzazione economica. Il campo politico, come sempre, sta sul piano statale, anche se l’organizzazione globale si trova su un altro piano. Per questo c’è un nazionalismo reazionario che si oppone a tale situazione; d’altra parte, però, non c’è una forma concreta di universalismo, perché la vera
universalità naturalmente si orienterebbe contro il mercato globale e sosterrebbe un’altra forma, un’altra forma organizzativa e un’altra forma di collaborazione rispetto ai processi produttivi."

[Elham Ea · Rating 2 out of 5]

این کتاب در واقع جمع آوری دو سخنرانی بدیو در آغاز پیروزی ترامپ در انتخابات است. بر خلاف عنوانی که روی کتاب گذاشته شده در مورد خود ترامپ کمتر میخونیم. انتخاب ترامپ فقط بهانه ای بوده برای اینکه به ایده نفی سرمایه داری و تجلیل از کمونیسم پرداخته بشه.

[Benjamin Britton · Rating 5 out of 5]

“...this disaster, makes it impossible for me to stand here before you all this evening and speak to you about this thing, however interesting it may be, in purely academic terms.”

“How is it possible for someone like Trump to be elected president of the greatest power in the world, the United States of America?”

“I think we must start with the most obvious point, but also the most important one: the victory, on a worldwide scale, of global capitalism. It is on this point, first of all, that we must insist. Since the 1980s – in other words, for forty years or so – we have been witnessing the historic victory of global capitalism.”

“But then it turned into the opposition between the liberal doctrine of the free market on the one hand and the different varieties of socialism and communism on the other.”

“the end of inequalities must be the fundamental goal of human political activity – the end of inequalities, even if it requires a violent revolution.”

“For forty years or so now, our situation seems to have been the disappearance of this type of choice. Today the dominant idea is that there is no global choice – that, as Margaret Thatcher used to repeat, “There is no alternative”

“All that matters is that it is the only solution. And that we must replace what the Chinese communists, in the time of Mao, called “the two-line struggle” – that is, the struggle between communism and capitalism – with a mandatory consensus imposed by the real existence of only one way.”

“The power of the liberal capitalist way lies in declaring itself to be the only way.”

“What is a human subject in this ruling liberal vision? A human subject is an owner; if he isn’t an owner, he had better be a salaried employee; in any case, he must be a consumer; and, if he is none of the above, he is nothing at all.”

“And the fundamental law of the monster in question is scientifically defined – this is the heart of Marxism – not by more and more freedom but, rather, by more and more inequality.”

“Thanks to grave crises, false promises, and inappropriate “solutions,” governments create among their people, on a large scale, frustration, misunderstanding, anxiety, and vague revolts.”

“we have the appearance of a new kind of activist, who defends violent and demagogic proposals and who seems more and more to take as his model gangsters or mafias, rather than trained bourgeois politicians. We have had this style of new politician in France, with Sarkozy and his gang. We have seen it in Italy, with Berlusconi and his mafia. We have it here, since yesterday, with Trump, the vulgar and incoherent billionaire.”

“these new figures in terms of a kind of “democratic fascism,” a paradoxical but effective designation. After all, the Berlusconis, the Sarkozys, the Le Pens, the Trumps, are operating inside the democratic apparatus, with its elections, its oppositions, its scandals,”

“Trump, who is racist, a male chauvinist, violent – all of which are fascist tendencies – but who, in addition, displays a contempt for logic and rationality and a muffled hatred of intellectuals”

“n Trump, we find once again the deliberate vulgarity, the pathological relation to women, and the calculated exercise of the right to say publicly things that are unacceptable to a large portion of humanity today that we also see in Hungary with Orbán, in India, or in the Philippines, as well as in Poland or in Erdoğan’s Turkey.”

“In a sense, democratic fascism is nothing more than yet another artificial conversion of old things into novelties.”

“First, there is the complete brutality, the blind violence, of capitalism today”

“Then we have the decomposition of the classical political oligarchy, the end of the existence of a cultivated dominant class, and the appearance of what I have called “democratic fascism.”

“We therefore also have popular frustration, the feeling of a vague disorder, the fear of the future, the experience of being stuck in a dead end... the whole part of the world’s population that has been reduced by the brutality of contemporary capitalism to invisibility and obscurity, without money and without any sense of orientation for their own existence.”

“We all know that there are revolts, new occupations of squares in big cities, new mobilizations, a new ecological activism, etc. The point is not that there is a total absence of any form of resistance or revolt. But there is the lack of another strategic path, of a conviction that could have the same power as the resigned belief according to which capitalism is the only possible path for the future of humanity as a whole. This is the lack of what I call an Idea, a great Idea.”

“So it is time to ask Lenin’s famous question: “What is to be done?”

“the true opposition between two antagonistic visions, could in no way be symbolized by the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Because, to tell you the truth, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, however different their styles may be, both belong to the small
worldwide oligarchy that is capitalizing its profits on a worldwide scale.”

“the real contradiction in our world was much better represented by the opposition between Trump and Sanders than by the tandem Trump–Clinton.”

“The contradiction between Trump and Sanders was at least the possible beginning of a vision of the world that might go beyond the one that is imposed on us. Trump was on the side of a pseudo-popular subjectivity, reactive and obscure. Sanders was on the side of an active and enlightened popular subjectivity which seeks to orient itself, beyond the constraints of the one and only path, towards possible modes of being outside the monster.”

“We can no longer content ourselves with people like Hillary Clinton, or with anything of the kind. We must create a return, if possible, towards a true contradiction”

“the essential political gesture, today, is the return of dialectics, which is to say, the return to the real Two,”

“Trump must be interpreted as an ugly symptom of the global situation, not only of the United States but of the world, the world in which we are living today.”

“And the forth possibility is to be nothing at all, neither a consumer nor an employee nor a peasant nor a capitalist. Probably 3 billion people today are in that position, and they are wandering through the world, searching for a place to live.”

“What we have here is a sort of limit of the capitalist possibility.”

“from the perspective of globalized capitalism itself, we have today a surplus of humanity – a surplus of people without any destination, without any reason to exist.”

“In capitalism, it is sufficient to say that nothing else is possible.”

“These have been concrete empirical victories. But the ideological victory is much more important: this is the victory of the conviction that, “OK, capitalism is not good, monstrous inequalities are horrible, and so on, but there is no other possibility,” and so this reduction from two to one is a very fundamental fact in recent history.”

“...modern politics always begins with the idea that this world is not completely unified but divided into two parts.”

“... the common opinion is precisely that the general law of the space as a whole [which is represented by the background to figure 1] is globalized capitalism. So there really is something like a common ideology,”

“Trump is at the intersection between the official representation and what exceeds it. He is in the Republican Party, but he also represents something outside it: sexism, racism, tendencies towards fascism. In some sense, with much greater sophistication, Bernie Sanders is on the other side.”

“And in my opinion this is why, at the end of the day, Trump won: he was on the side of the true contradiction.”

“...ultimately the system itself is in crisis.”

“We cannot repeat; we have to invent. My proposal at the philosophical level is to adopt the name that has symbolized this polarity for a whole century, which is the word “communism.”

“In some sense, all political words are corrupted. History is a great corruption of everything that is present in history itself. But a name is only a name. What we lack is an Idea, a great Idea.”


“We have to pass from one to two. We must return absolutely to the conviction that there exist two strategic ways and not one. And we can organize limited experiences that demonstrate that it is not a necessity, that you can organize production and social life in a form that is not the dictatorship of private property.”

“The second point is that it is not a necessity that human work should be divided between such noble activities as intellectual creation and government, on the one hand, and manual labor and common material existence, on the other.”

“The third principle is that it’s not a necessity for human beings – and this point goes against the right – to be separated by national, racial, religious, or sexual boundaries. Equality must exist across differences...”

“Equality must be a dialectics of difference itself.”

“And the last principle is that there is no necessity for a state in the form of a separated and armed power. We can go in the direction of what Marx calls “free association” – that is, the idea that everything concerning people’s lives and futures can be discussed appropriately in meetings among people themselves.”

“At one point, Bernie Sanders seemed to propose something like a new political group under the name “Our Revolution.”

“It’s very difficult. It’s very difficult today, I know, but probably after Trump we must say to ourselves: “Only one world and only one courage.” Thank you.”

[Jake · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trump consists of two lectures that Alain Badiou gave in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidential election win. One talk was given at the University of California two days after the election results were announced, and the other took place two weeks later at Tufts University in Boston.

Like many of us, Badiou was deeply disturbed by Trump’s victory, and he used these lectures as an opportunity to organize his thoughts and give some definition to the political situation at hand. In the process, he asks two fundamental questions – the first is more philosophical and abstract, while the second is more practical and political. What is the situation? And what is to be done, given this situation?

In the first, Badiou argues that the situation – that is, the presidency of Trump – is not a specific problem or the problem facing Americans, but is rather a “symptom” of the real problem, which he identifies as the “monster” of “global capitalism”. Badiou then goes on to suggest that the best way to confront this situation is to realize the communist ideal through the principles of Marxist-Leninism as he understands them.

Broadly speaking, those are the answers that Badiou provides to the questions he sets forth. Overall, I think that his answers are largely unsuccessful. To his credit, I have the benefit of hindsight in June 2022 that Badiou could not possess in November 2016. And so where Badiou succeeded, I think, is in calling immediate attention to the problem of Trump in that contemporaneous moment. Indeed, identifying Trump as a problem, and then locating the Trump phenomenon within the much bigger problem of free market capitalism, is certainly right and true. It is always interesting to see a philosopher reflecting on the immediate political climate that they find themselves in. There are some truly ballsy moments in the lectures as well; at one point, he even mentions the possible death of the former Apprentice host.

Where Badiou falls short is that he does not see Donald Trump as a specific problem, or a unique political figure, or even really as a human being. Moreover, the characterization of Trump as a symptom of the monster of global capitalism risks the re-deployment of a pathologized and oversimplified language that we find so often in the very authoritarian systems of power that Badiou seeks to dismiss.

That raises another issue – Badiou fails to recognize the authoritarian impulses contained within the history of communism as both ideology and revolutionary practice. He somehow thinks that fascism and communism are mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed political ideologies – two night-and-day polar opposites on a linear right-left political spectrum. The reality is not so neat and tidy.

Living through the Trump years, we have seen the various ways in which the strategies and suspicions of the left have been adopted and re-appropriated by the right, and vice versa. More than ever, the political spectrum looks more like a prism than a straight line, with elements of the right and left refracted through the centre. I sense that Badiou recognizes this murkiness, yet his steadfast allegiance to the axioms of Marxist-Leninism is far too strong to fully appreciate its current implications.

[Erfan hajiparvane · Rating 2 out of 5]

آلن بدیو، دو روز پس از پیروزی ترامپ و دو هفته بعد از آن، دو سخنرانی مهم با مضمونی نسبتا یکسان داشت که آنها را در کتابی به نام “ترامپ” گرد آورده است. همه تلاش بدیو این است که نشان دهد دوگانه‌ای میان هیلاری کلینتون و دانالد ترامپ وجود نداشته و تفاوت چندانی میان آنها نیست. هر چند ترامپ بددهن، بی‌شخصیت، زن‌ستیز و ضدروشنفکری است. بدیو زمین بازی هر دو نامزد جمهوری خواه و دموکرات را سرمایه‌داری می‌داند. او در تمام طول سخنرانی سعی می‌کند این ایده را که سرمایه‌داری یگانه راه ادامه حیات بشر است، را زیر علامت سوأل ببرد. بدیو می‌گوید ما در وضعیتی یکسر سرمایه‌دارانه به سر می‌بریم. او برای اثبات این حرف استناد می‌کند که ثروت ۲۶۴ نفر در جهان برابر است با ثروت ۷ میلیارد نفر بقیه جهان. بدیو پیش‌بینی می‌کند که در سالهای آینده این عدد و رقم یحتمل اوضاع بدتری را تجربه خواهد کرد. آلن بدیو ترامپ را به سیلویو برلوسکونی و نیکولا سارکوزی تشبیه می‌کند و سعی می‌کند شرایط امکان پدیداری چیزی را توضیح دهد که نامش را فاشیسم دموکراتیک می‌نامند. او که در بخش‌هایی از سخنرانی خود آگاهانه از برنی سندرز دفاع می‌کند، راه‌حل منش ترامپی و سرمایه‌دارانه را، کمونیسم می‌داند. البته کمونیسم نه به معنای آنچه در شوروی یا چین محقق شده است. ایده کمونیسم. ایده‌ای فارغ از هر گونه تحریف تاریخی.

[Chris Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally good - I agreed with most of what Badiou says.

Some notes / thoughts:

* Given the passing of time I found the following funny (given in the first talk - two days after Trump's election) - Badiou gets it spectacularly wrong when he says ...

"There was the self-satisfied Trump of the electoral campaign before the victory, and then there is the Trump who has gained power, and who seems somewhat frightened. Trump knows that he will not be able to speak as freely as before. Speaking freely, uttering vulgarities and absurdities, was in a certain sense the source of his power, his false novelty. But now, with all the trappings of government, administration, the military, the economists, the bankers, the congress, including those in his own camp, it will be another story."

* Felt a little bit disturbed when, in answering a question regarding the possibility of a CIA / FBI coup to otherthrow Trump, Badiou responds by saying "If they kill him, that's okay". This is a thoughtless response given that the core essence of both of Badiou's talks is that Trump is merely a symptom of broader issues; killing Trump is *not* okay - it will change nothing - Trump is the effect, not the cause of the problems he talks about.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three lectures by a French philosopher presented at different American universities in the wake of Trump's 2016 election. His (mostly Marxist) oriented analysis is too schematic to be entirely convincing, but he usefully reminds us that the corruption, violence, racism, and sexism that seem so emblematic of Trump, preceded him (-- so defeating him in 2024 will do nothing by itself toward addressing those problems).

[Alireza Yoonesi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I shouldn't write a review on this book since I have mistrust in the communist beliefs, therefore my review contains suspicion and false judgments. But the book itself is a fine piece. Liked the idea that suggests democrats are not true leftists and the real debate of 2015 was not about Clinton at all.
Most people will enjoy reading this book.

[Nate Krenkel · Rating 4 out of 5]

bought at Gulf of Maine

[David witthauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finest man/president this country has seen in years.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Badiou avoids the fascination of Trump and goes straight into a concise analysis of the situation which spawns a person like Trump.

[Thadius Lambert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its a great short read, and it still holds up.

[Zoe Barnstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it in a few hours. Essential reading for “our revolution.”

[Liam Creaser · Rating 3 out of 5]

does anyone care if I read random small books on my phone

[Ehsan · Rating 4 out of 5]

what I read in this book was a rational analysis of what is going on in world politics and how a State coexists with the nation.

[Paulio Himmelmench · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little tedious and quickly dated.