The hegemony of will: An analysis of the Trump 2.0 presidency through the lens of classical realism

1. The metamorphosis of the state apparatus: From improvisation to the discipline of the Council of State
   • The triumvirate of stability: Wiles, Rubio, and Bessent
2. America First: Power without the Western community
   • The twilight of Atlanticism
3. Shock diplomacy: Tangible results and lasting fractures
   • Operation Absolute Resolve and the capture of Nicolás Maduro
   • The Ukrainian case: Realism versus morality
4. The Greenland crisis: A major strategic error?
5. Trumpism as a system: A Tocquevillian reading of the American divide
   • The threat of “tyranny of the majority”
6. Succession: Towards a Trump dynasty?
7. Conclusion: Thinking about Trump's world with severity and realism
   • Works cited

One year after the 2025 inauguration, it is time to take stock, free from ideological illusions and partisan complacency. Machiavelli, in The Prince, put it succinctly: “Everyone sees what you appear to be, few understand what you are.” Trump has proven to be, above all, a political animal with a rare instinct—a true zoon politikon in the Aristotelian sense, whose reading of American social malaise remains so accurate that his detractors persist in ignoring it. The paradox is worth noting: the man reputed to be unpredictable has become, in his methods, one of the most predictable presidents in American history, without his actions ceasing to destabilize the world order. Today, he is implementing, with almost notarial precision, what he once announced in the tumult of excess. The difference is decisive: he now knows how to govern the federal machine. But this newly acquired mastery has convinced him not to temper his behavior, but rather of his absolute untouchability.

The metamorphosis of the state apparatus: From improvisation to the discipline of the Council of State

The major break between the first and second terms lies not so much in rhetoric as in the very structure of the team. In 2017, Trump arrived at the White House surrounded by an improvised entourage, often unfamiliar with the intricacies of the federal government. The result was predictable: four chiefs of staff in four years, chronic instability, and an administration undermined by infighting. Henry Kissinger summed it up with his keen sense of the mechanics of power: “A leader without a coherent team is a general without an army.”

The Trump of 2026 has learned the lesson of structural failure. His current team combines experience and renewal, loyalty and technical competence. Key members have learned—sometimes the hard way—to express their reservations without provoking presidential wrath, mastering the narrative because they have understood a cardinal truth of modern politics: perception shapes reality as much as the facts themselves.

The triumvirate of stability: Wiles, Rubio, and Bessent

Three figures embody this transition from “chienlit” — to borrow a term from de Gaulle — to methodical efficiency reminiscent of a certain French administrative rigor.

Susie Wiles' influence is decisive. She has reintroduced a minimum of discipline into a formerly chaotic system, acting as a true éminence grise capable of channeling presidential energy toward tangible goals. 

As for Marco Rubio, he embodies the president's major strategic success: by concentrating diplomacy and national security in his own hands, he has eliminated the bureaucratic friction that paralyzed the first term.

However, this professionalization of power has not led to greater moderation. Quite the contrary: the hard ideological core of Trumpism has consolidated, while the space for mediation has shrunk.

Power is more effective, but also more impervious to nuance. Trump now governs without any real internal counterbalances, within a federal machine with three million civil servants and a colossal budget of seven trillion dollars.

America First: Power without the Western community

To describe Trump as an “isolationist” is an analytical error that Raymond Aron would certainly have denounced as “mental hemiplegia.” The president has never been less inward-looking. America First does not imply a withdrawal from the world, but a brutal prioritization of national interests. Trumpism purists—including former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, now marginalized and ironically renamed “Marjorie TraitorGreene” by Trump—confuse international hyperactivity with strategic renunciation.

Wiles and Rubio remind us unequivocally: America First requires an offensive foreign policy, faithful to the Reagan principle of "peace through strength ." The president's diplomatic activism—from Iran to the African Great Lakes—reveals a clear desire to redefine American spheres of influence. What is at stake is not the power of the United States, but its sense of belonging to a united Western community.

The twilight of Atlanticism

In Washington, Europe is increasingly seen not as a strategic partner, but as a budgetary and military liability. When Trump asserts that “Europe needs the United States more than the United States needs Europe,” it is not simply campaign rhetoric: it is an admission of a profound doctrinal shift. The Atlantic is no longer the pivot of American strategy; competition with China has become so.

This shift creates a vacuum that Moscow is skillfully exploiting. By undermining trust between allies, Trump is weakening the very credibility of Western deterrence. As Aron pointed out in Peace and War Between Nations, the strength of an alliance lies in its ideological cohesion and its willingness to fight. If Vladimir Putin perceives NATO as divided by purely transactional interests, his strategic calculations change radically. For Europeans, Trump's transactional diplomacy undermines the principles that have sustained peace on the continent for seven decades.

Shock diplomacy: Tangible results and lasting fractures

It would be intellectually dishonest to deny certain results of this “rupture” method. Despite excessive rhetoric and often flawed diplomatic forms, Trump has made progress in Iran, Gaza, and the African Great Lakes. His style remains abrupt, direct, and often brutal: Trump practices transactional diplomacy based on initial destabilization. He exaggerates to coerce, provokes to negotiate, and aims for the extreme to obtain the substantial.

Operation Absolute Resolve and the capture of Nicolás Maduro

The arrest of Nicolás Maduro reinforced his image as a leader who acts without compunction. To speak of “kidnapping” is either ignorant or disingenuous: the Venezuelan leader had not been considered a legitimate head of state by Washington since 2018, and the crimes of narco-terrorism against him are serious.

The operation, conducted by the DEA with the support of the Delta Force, was based on a warrant issued by federal judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old magistrate appointed by Bill Clinton, thus ensuring a degree of legal continuity despite the military brutality of the act. This action illustrates Trump's willingness to use the US judicial system as an arm of his foreign policy, turning criminal cases into geopolitical leverage.

The Ukrainian case: Realism versus morality

Ukraine, however, remains the major failure, or at least the most painful point of friction with Europe. Trump has not kept his promise to end Russian aggression in the blink of an eye. Worse, the pressure exerted on Kiev has fractured the Western consensus. Hubert Védrine points out that Trump is seeking above all to impose a “ceasefire” rather than a lasting peace, presenting Europeans with a fait accompli. Where Europe sees a moral abandonment and a direct threat to its security, Washington invokes budgetary rigor and the realism of power relations.

The Greenland crisis: A major strategic error?

It is in the management of the Atlantic alliance that the risks are most serious, and the Greenland affair is the most troubling illustration of this. The strategic value of the Arctic is undeniable in the face of Russian and Chinese ambitions; the risk of this territory falling into Beijing's orbit would be catastrophic for North American security.

However, treating a founding NATO ally such as Denmark with the same brutality as an Asian trade adversary is no longer a matter of strategy, but of misjudgment. As François Heisbourg notes, on this issue, Trump has become “the problem rather than the solution.” By threatening the territorial integrity of a member of the Alliance, he is undermining the credibility of Article 5. If China takes advantage of the turmoil to position itself as the defender of international law in the Global South, the United States will lose much more than a military base: it will lose its moral authority.

Trumpism as a system: A Tocquevillian reading of the American divide

To understand Donald Trump's resilience, we must reread Alexis de Tocqueville. In Democracy in America, he was already concerned about the “natural tendency” of democratic societies toward a certain individualistic withdrawal that could leave the field open to a new type of despotism. Trump has managed to transform this disinterest in public affairs into a destructive political passion for old institutions.

He dominates the political scene with a mastery that his critics refuse to acknowledge. With no initial political experience, he has demonstrated an extraordinary political instinct, accurately identifying the American social malestar. Where analysts see populism, he sees opportunities to reconfigure the national agenda around “reindustrialization with borders,” a concept that retains its appeal among Rust Belt voters.

The threat of “tyranny of the majority”

Trumpism in 2026 is no longer just a protest movement; it is a consolidated power machine. It is a motley coalition of conservatism, social anger, and deep resentment toward the East Coast elites. Tocqueville noted that what endangers society is the “relaxation of all” in the face of fundamental principles. Trump understood that in a tired democracy, the strength of natural bonds (the tribe, the clan) often ends up prevailing over social and civic bonds.

Succession: Towards a Trump dynasty?

The question of succession is now becoming acute. J.D. Vance appears to be the natural heir, the man capable of giving a more stable doctrinal structure to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. But Trumpism is not a homogeneous ideological bloc; it is a system of power based on the figure of the leader.

In this context, the hypothesis of a Vance-Trump Jr. ticket for 2028 is circulating with increasing insistence. The dynastic temptation is real, transforming what was a political insurrection into a family institution. As de Gaulle reminded us, "glory is only given to those who have always dreamed of it ." Trump seems to dream of glory that will outlive him through blood as much as through deeds.

Conclusion: Thinking about Trump's world with severity and realism

One thing is certain: the coming years will be tumultuous. The midterm elections will not be mere formalities, but plebiscites on this new way of exercising power. Those who hope to see Trump become a weakened president—the famous “lame duck”—are seriously mistaken. Trump will remain true to himself until the last day of his term in January 2029: serious in his ambitions for power, but never literal in his rhetoric.

For France and Europe, the challenge is immense. It is no longer a question of "jumping up and down in your chair like a goat shouting 'Europe! Europe!" but to build real autonomy. For if states have no friends, only interests, it is time for European nations to define theirs with the same clarity, and sometimes the same harshness, as that shown by the current occupant of the White House. Peace, as Aron pointed out, is not the absence of war but a strength of the soul. Europe must rediscover this strength if it does not want to be the passive object of a history that is now being written without it, between Washington and Beijing.

In this new world disorder, Gaullist realism and Aronian lucidity remain our best compasses. Understanding Trump's world means accepting that the era of automatic protection is over and that sovereignty, to be respected, must be exercised with unwavering vigor. For in the end, as de Gaulle taught, "nothing enhances authority better than silence, the splendor of the strong and the refuge of the weak ." In the face of Trump's clamor, Europe's silence must not be that of weakness, but that of a power preparing itself.

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