Thank you for the welcome to Ricochet. This is my first post. I’m new to the community as a philosopher (not political commentator) and look forward to the exchange of ideas. 

The truly historic meeting that took place yesterday between the leaders of the nations of the Korean Peninsula didn’t happen by accident or in a vacuum. While pundits speculate on a panoply of factors that may or may not have contributed to the initial negotiations, undeniable is the role played by one Donald J. Trump.

The President of the United States took a most unorthodox, ill-advised, and universally decried approach to Kim Jung Un and the need for nuclear disarmament. Astonishingly, his aggressive, assertive strategy—whatever one can make of it—appears to be working. It is astonishing. He is, if nothing else, astonishing. And this astonishing spectacle may very well be heading to Stockholm before his first term comes to an end … and his second term begins.

Not being a qualified commentator on American politics, I offer here a philosophical observation on Donald Trump’s phenomenal successes against unrelenting, vitriolic opposition and concerted efforts to usurp his presidency, and it comes from an equally unusual source: Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche, the influential nineteenth-century German existential philosopher, signaled a pivotal change in the process of cultural mutation in the West in the human search for meaning away from the Christian existentialism of Søren Kierkegaard. Put differently, and to paraphrase Georgetown University’s Francis J. Ambrosio, in the human quest for meaning contested between the saint and civic hero, Nietzsche forged a synthesis in the literary character of Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883). Donald Trump is our Zarathustra. 

Zarathustra was penned as Nietzsche’s “secular-saint” — a much-needed Übermensch conceived in the mind of Nietzsche to salvage decadent Western civilization, unmoored from theism and (from his perspective within the Industrial Revolution and the Darwinian paradigm) awash in consumerism. With the “death of God” and therefore the loss of value-systems grounded in complementary natural and eternal law, everything became commodified and thus exploitable — values, time, even existence itself. All these things contributed to the impersonal worldview of heroic, not saintly, virtue; of market values, not religious values; of secular pursuits, not saintly pursuits. Nietzsche would prophetically see the decadent, dystopian end of this cultural megashift and offered, as it were, an irreligious religion with Zarathustra, the Übermensch secular-saint as modernity’s evolutionary icon.

For Nietzsche, Zarathustra offers the best and most plausible view of the human search for meaning for those not seeking it in and through, particularly, traditionary Christianity. After all, observed Nietzsche, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” Where, then, will the values that galvanize communities and humanize individuals arise? Nietzsche answers: from the model of the post-enlightenment hero that will rise from the ashes of failed Western culture.

That anthropological model argues that all persons can be defined in terms of their will — that which is authentically human is the will and the exercising of it is what it means to be really alive. That accent on the will, on human decision not beholden to a governing ethical system (such that Christianity or secular humanism prescribed/inculcated) is a distinguishing feature of Nietzsche’s thought. He becomes, therefore, the champion of “self-overcoming.” A human being’s basic motivation is what he called “will to power.” To be an authentic human being in one’s existence (as opposed to the enslaved “herd” morality and mentality indicative of the consumer or Christian), he or she must exercise will to power. He or she must overcome the self that has been enslaved by Christian morality of self-denial and self-debasement, overcome even its remnants and influence in the secular state.

Nietzsche believed Western civilization had robbed humanity of its basic power, strength, and courage, and so he sought to restore it through what he calls “master morality.” The master morality is the morality of the authentic person, who in a world with no values or meaning or morality, has the courage to create one’s own values, meaning, and morality; to be totally free and autonomous, in terms of being a law unto one’s self. Nietzsche, then, provides a plausible lens by which to understand the phenomenon that is Donald J. Trump. 

The Übermensch, Trump, is the exceptional person, unashamed of his uniqueness in the face of a supposed morality-for-all that comes from, in this case, Judeo-Christian ethics or the conventions of political correctness. Donald Trump the citizen, the candidate, the President, may speak manifest contradictions but it matters not to him since he is not beholden to herd morality or the demands of media conformity. He may live with fidelity or infidelity with his present wife. What matters in his mind is whether he is treated “fairly” or not, relative to others who have done the same/are doing the same. In this way, the exceptional man follows his own “inner law” and thus feel not a tinge of conscience that typically arise from such antinomies.

For Nietzsche, the Übermensch embodies the human search for meaning and self-contrived virtue in the time after theism and the failed utopian enterprise of the Enlightenment. Applied today, the Übermensch embodies the hope for a new authentically human society of the fulfillment of human desire after the failed endeavors of liberal politics and ideological progressivism — the grandchildren of the utopian enterprise of the Enlightenment. Trump embodies that hope after disillusionment, after enslavement, after the superimposition of party politics, for at least for sixty-three million voters.

For Nietzsche, Napoleon best embodied the concept of the master moralist. Today, we may see parallels in President Trump who, like Napoleon, is the great-willed person, carving out his own value system and meaningful existence as one of the strong, in juxtaposition to his “weak”(-willed) opponents and their antiquated paradigms. He conforms to no one but rises above convention to the station of the “super” or über or Over-man. Nietzsche puts it like this: “Whatever lives obeys, that is, obeys the necessity of all reality. So he who cannot obey himself is commanded. That is the nature of the living. But commanding is harder than obeying. Life is nothing but this will to power, that is, the will to self-mastery.” Hence, the “will to power” is nothing the than self-overcoming to pursue self’s desires. Donald Trump has done that in the public eye and has obtained the coveted desires of our culture, such that it is, with fantastic wealth, unbounded renown, extraordinary women, global powers. He exercises his will to power and achieves it to become authentically human, manifesting our natural and collective envy. And it is envy, a collective societal envy, commingled with a nostalgia for the spirit of Americana, that has, in part, thrust this Zarathustra into the world’s most powerful political office.

Remarkably, Zarathustra offers four recommendations for the rise of authentic humanity that are distinctive traits of Donald J. Trump. First: “Own up to envy.” Nietzsche, by the mouth of Zarathustra, turns this biblical deadly sin into a virtue par excellence. Envy can be a powerful guide to identifying and pursuing what we really want, who we really want to be, and what we are capable of achieving. Owning your true desires fuels your resolve to obtain them. Therein one finds true dignity, meaning and value, as our President ceaselessly reminds his auditors by way of the braggadocios litany of his accomplishments, self-branding, and conspicuously lavish lifestyle. He desired a certain elite status, even a kind of immortality, and obtained it. He views himself as an overcomer by way of his will to power. And now, as an icon of success and fame, he elicits, sometimes solicits, our individual and collective envy to speak, pursue, and strive after one’s innermost desires to be authentic. 

Second, Zarathustra advised not to be a Christian. It would be a step too far to say that President Trump is not a Christian. By his own profession, I believe he is. But a compelling, indeed, indisputable case can be made for the incompatibility with and expectations of Christian discipleship and the behavioral, as well as allegiance, patterns of Donald Trump. He does not deny what he really wants: power, sex, possessions, fame. Christians — the Christ-like ones, as Nietzsche sees them, are too weak to fight for their natural desires. So, to again paraphrase Francis J. Ambrosio, abstinence becomes purity, spiritual displaces the material, weakness is virtue, loving your enemies is noble, being a slave is dutiful obedience, and for Nietzsche the impotence of non-retaliation (non-revenge) becomes forgiveness. Christianity, at least ancient and traditionary Christianity, perpetuates inhuman self-denial. Donald J. Trump, despite evangelical visions of the contrary, is not beholden to that ancient institution in its traditionary forms, ethic, or worldview.

Third, in order to self-overcome, one must abstain from alcohol because it mutes the will to power. Donald J. Trump famously abstains from the consumption of alcohol, only adding to his legendary work-ethic and inexhaustible energy.

Lastly, Zarathustra admonishes that one recognize that God is dead, not in a celebratory way, but with the knowledge that one must pursue other avenues for coping with the problems of life. The cultural gap once occupied by God is now to be filled by art, music, literature, theatre, philosophy — a recovery of the golden age of human achievement, by way of business, research, educational, and cultural endeavors. Mar-a-Lago, for example, may be seen as a monument so such values.

I don’t believe these are conscious points of overlap for the President, as if he were a devotee of Nietzsche, much less striving to emulate Zarathustra. This reflection is offered only as a foil by which to understand how it is that he can operate seemingly impervious to his publicized indiscretions and with an aggressive deportment and carriage never before witnessed in the Oval Office. Part of the answer seems to be this: He embodies what it means to be authentic in ways that parallel Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.

Today, marketing intends to engender envy (celebrities, morals, elites, etc.). But pop culture, pop consumption, pop movements are the opposite of what Nietzsche intended. He expected high art, high culture; a modern Renaissance, not Hitlers or Cosbys but Rothchilds and Morgans. Donald Trump seems to have exploited pop cultural values in order to forge his Zarathustraian desires, in a complex personality fraught with paradox.

Trump, I contend, is our Zarathustra, our Übermensch. And only such an Übermensch could have addressed, challenged, and usurped the slave mentality and morality of progressivism, political correctness, and globalization. It may win him a Nobel Prize in Stockholm. For these reasons, a great number of Americans believe that we need Donald J. Trump to be our moment’s Zarathustra. He is our “secular-saint,” understandably attractive to evangelicals and sufficiently secular for nones, dones, and millennials. Being our Zarathustra also contributes to the reasons why those same voters and supporters experience such cognitive dissonance about him and visceral recoil because of him. We need and envy him in a moment such as this and at the same time hope that, within our lifetime, we never need the likes of him again.