In History’s Bigger picture: Trump is a blotch
This is an excerpt from an opinion column in The Guardian by foreign affairs columnist Simon Tisdall. We recommend you read the full version here.
Take this hopeful thought into 2026: the tyrants we endure always falter, and their “seismic” upheavals are usually false dawns.
Revolutions are overrated, intrinsically unpredictable and typically followed by counter-revolutions. True turning points in history are actually quite rare—and difficult to spot. Even rarer are genuinely world-changing leaders. Donald Trump presents a case study.
The way Trump tells it, he’s Alexander, Charlemagne, George Washington, Napoleon and Mahatma Gandhi all rolled into one. Yet after a decade at the top of U.S. politics, solid achievements are few. His peacemaking flounders, his economic and trade tariff policies falter, his personal approval rating tumbles. Towering ego, ignorance, vulgarity and bottomless narcissism are Trump’s only exceptional traits.
Right now, the global and domestic upheavals triggered by Trump and MAGA seem transformational. They are symbolized by the new U.S. national security strategy—an authoritarian, anti-European, transatlantic alliance-rupturing charter. On all sides the cry is heard: “The old order perishes. Chaos looms!”
It’s claimed Trump has permanently changed how Ameri
Yet looked at in the round, the Trumpian moment is fleeting. Trump, 79, has three years remaining in power, at most. Even if a loyalist wins in 2028, a huge if, no heir can match his monstrous appeal. His MAGA coalition is fracturing.
cans view the world. But they said that about 1930s America First isolationism, and that didn’t last, either. Time will show the Trump era to be less turning point, more freakish aberration—a sort of Prohibition for populists. In history’s bigger picture, Trump is a blotch, an unsightly smear on the canvas.
. . . At an unsettling moment in world affairs when the tectonic plates are shifting, it’s important to stay grounded, to maintain perspective. As 2026 trepidatiously creeps through the door, nursing hangovers from the tumultuous year just ending, try counting the continuities and bridges rather than dwelling on earthquakes and chasms. . . .
If one is allowed a wish for 2026, it’s that there be no great geopolitical turning points, no epic spasms or watersheds (with possible exceptions for Putin’s defeat and Trump’s resignation).