History As It Happens
"Hannah Arendt and Trump 2.0"
Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Samuel Moyn, Professor of Law and History at Yale University
Date: October 24, 2025
Episode Overview
This episode explores the resurgence of interest in political philosopher Hannah Arendt—particularly her ideas about truth, totalitarianism, and propaganda—in the context of Donald Trump’s political return (“Trump 2.0”). Host Martin Di Caro talks with Samuel Moyn about the nuances and misreadings of Arendt’s work, the limits of historical analogy, and whether Arendt helps us genuinely understand contemporary American politics or merely lends rhetorical firepower to the #Resistance and pundit class.
Key Discussion Points and Insights
1. The "Arendt Phenomenon" in Contemporary Politics
- Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism became a bestseller after Trump's first election in 2016, as fears of authoritarianism mounted.
- “Origins of Totalitarianism became a huge bestseller. It became a kind of compendium of the resistance, so called, which is really a liberal phenomenon.” — Samuel Moyn (04:09)
- Arendt is treated by some as a prophetic voice on Trump and "post-truth" politics, though her thinking is more nuanced and often appropriated selectively.
- There is concern that her work is being used opportunistically, similar to how people quote religious texts to validate any position.
- “You find what you want to find in the same way you can find what you want to find in the Bible or Moby Dick.” — Samuel Moyn (04:09)
2. Arendt's Views on Truth and Politics
- Arendt distinguished between factual truth and the “realms of appearance” in politics, warning that persistent lying by leaders creates cynicism, not belief.
- “The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth...is that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world...is being destroyed.” — Hannah Arendt, quoted by Martin Di Caro (05:00)
- For Arendt, the problem isn’t simply that leaders tell lies, but that relentless propaganda erodes the line between belief and skepticism, fueling cynicism.
- Arendt did not believe politics should be governed solely by truth, recognizing that “all politicians are deceptive and liars,” and saw a positive role in the “play of appearances."
3. Comparing Trumpism to Totalitarian Regimes
- Trump exhibits some features Arendt associates with mass leaders (e.g., “unending infallibility”) but lacks the ideological depth and systemization of leaders like Hitler or Stalin.
- “Trump has no ideological system. He’s not pursuing any type of ideological big goal to remake society, as were the Nazis and especially the Soviets.” — Martin Di Caro (21:21)
- “The essential question…what's fundamentally different is that Trump does not have a mandate...he doesn't have the social foundations of power that Hitler and Stalin could claim.” — Samuel Moyn (21:52)
- Whereas Hitler or Stalin justified brutality through laws of history or nature, Trump’s appeal is more as a “garden variety nationalist” with little coherent doctrine.
4. The Limits of Historical Analogy and Misuse of Arendt
- The zealous invocation of Arendt often reflects more about the anxieties and political culture of her readers than about Trump himself.
- “The vast majority of those who invoke Arendt have not read her, certainly not read her seriously.” — Samuel Moyn (25:18)
- “Their citation tells us as much about us as it does about her.” — Samuel Moyn (27:35)
- Particularly in Trump’s first term, much resistance scholarship and punditry invoked her to denounce “fascism,” often without grappling with the complexities or gaps in her work.
5. Arendt's Influence and Controversies
- Arendt led an extraordinary life as a German-Jewish émigré, student of Heidegger, and celebrated (and controversial) public intellectual, especially after her reporting on the Eichmann trial.
- Her works, especially Origins of Totalitarianism, are more ambiguous, imaginative, and sometimes ill-informed than her modern admirers may acknowledge.
- She critiqued attempts to render politics as a domain of scientific certainty (e.g., Pentagon Papers, Vietnam), warning against the “despotic character of truth” intruding upon the inherently pluralistic and argumentative realm of politics.
6. The Structure of Truth in the Current Era
- Today, the challenge goes beyond lying—it’s about deep societal divisions and the breakdown of consensus, leading to multiple parallel realities.
- "We can have societies that are mainly afflicted by kind of diverging populations and a lack of fundamental consensus... we almost have like, parallel countries at this point." — Samuel Moyn (43:24)
- Tools like fact-checking have limited power in politics now that so much is about affect and shared belief, not factual clarity.
- Arendt’s views on the “virtue of the political realm to be shadowy” and contestable contrast with the fact-driven, technocratic approaches of the Cold War era.
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On the Use and Misuse of Arendt
“It became a kind of compendium of the resistance, so called, which is really a liberal phenomenon. It's not actually so clear that Arendt wasn't herself a conservative.”
— Samuel Moyn (04:09) -
Arendt on Fact and Fiction:
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exists.”
— quoted by Pope, cited by Martin De Caro (10:32) -
On Trump as Mass Leader:
*“The chief qualification of a mass leader has become unending infallibility. He can never admit an error.” — Arendt, quoted by De Caro (27:52)
“Sounds like Donald Trump, Martin. I mean, you've nailed it.”
— Samuel Moyn (28:17) -
On the Limits of Applying Arendt:
“There's something more intentional...about Trump 2.0... But he doesn't have the consent or the tools to lock down society in the way that Hitler and Stalin both did... That's just not the world in which we're living right now.”
— Samuel Moyn (21:52) -
On Liberalism’s Failures and the Rise of Trump:
“We're all on the hook for what happened. This is a much better way to think about Trump. Like, how did we get to him? Why is his trolling something that, you know, 70 to 80 million people have voted for twice? That's a story...about liberalism and centrist government over decades and the betrayal of ordinary people.”
— Samuel Moyn (35:30) -
On the State of U.S. Politics:
“It’s more Mafia than management.”
— Samuel Moyn (45:17)
Timestamps for Key Segments
- [02:32] - Introduction and framing: Arendt’s renewed relevance, Trump’s public statements
- [03:14] - “Arendt phenomenon” and the liberal “Resistance”; Moyn’s critique of opportunistic Arendt citations
- [05:00] - Martin DeCaro reads Arendt passages on lying and cynicism; context of Origins of Totalitarianism
- [10:18] - Moyn grades public figures' use of Arendt (the Pope, Michelle Goldberg)
- [13:43] - Arendt’s biography and philosophical evolution
- [16:16] - Misuses and overuses of Arendt post-2016; Arendt and the resistance
- [18:57] - What Arendt meant by “post-truth” and the nature of totalitarian lying
- [21:21] - Trump’s lack of ideological program; differences from historical totalitarians
- [25:18] - Scholarly critiques of Arendt’s work; problems with the “cult” of Arendt
- [27:52] - The “infallibility” of mass leaders; comparison to Trump
- [33:44] - Nationalism, myth, and ideology—how does Trump’s appeal compare?
- [35:30] - Responsibility for Trump: centrist failures and liberalism’s betrayal
- [39:16] - Arendt’s view on facts, narrative, and the “play of appearances” in politics
- [41:09] - Limits and virtues of fact checking; political truth as contested and performative
- [43:24] - The challenge of parallel realities and the breakdown of consensus in the U.S.
- [45:02] - “Global Mafia politics” as a more realistic model for Trump than fascism
Conclusion
The discussion presents a critical perspective on the trend of weaponizing Hannah Arendt's works in contemporary American debates about Trump and “post-truth” politics. Samuel Moyn emphasizes intellectual rigor and self-awareness, cautioning against facile historical analogies and urging audiences to confront the unique social and institutional failures that birthed Trumpism. As Arendt herself recognized, politics is never simply about “the facts”—and the rituals of citation may tell us as much about our anxieties as they do about our adversaries. For those navigating the tumult of Trump 2.0, Arendt remains a rich but complicated source, not a crystal ball.