Photo Source Jörg Schubert | CC BY 2.0
The Reactionary
If you look up the meaning of the term “reactionary,” you will probably get something like the following: “A reactionary is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo ante, the previous political state of society, which they believe possessed characteristics that are … absent from the contemporary status quo of a society.” Historically, this sort of person pops up over and again: the agents of monarchy fighting to reimpose the divine right of kings, the devotee of religious movements seeking to return society to some purer golden age, the leader of the social movement seeking to censor evolution, and, more to our present point, Donald Trump’s call to “make America Great Again” by reintroducing racism and ultra-nationalism as guides for public policy. As the last example suggests, it is usually bad news when the reactionary gains power.
One aspect of the status quo ante we are dealing with here is represented by the Trump administration’s assertion that, as the leader of the government of a sovereign state, he has the right to act in an unrestrained manner. For President Trump, such an alleged right is a sine qua non for “making America great again.” This assertion is, of course, not unique to Trump. Most U.S. presidents (and other leaders) have sought to act in an unrestrained way. But most have also given at least lip-service to a set of international rules—even…