- Florian Maiwald
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Trump as Pope: The New Reactionary Subject
Florian Maiwald
May 20, 2025
Trump’s statement that he could well imagine himself as Pope, and the subsequent AI-generated photo of Trump as Pope, should be seen as more than just a blasphemous act aiming to symbolically undermine religious authority[1]. Rather, Trump’s recent provocation is paradigmatic of the fact that the political right has now assumed the role of the revolutionary subject – a role once emblematic of the progressive left’s program.
On a symbolic level, this new – let us allow the term for lack of a better one – reactionary subject manifests itself in the logic of the chainsaw. First used by Javier Milei to destroy the Argentine state apparatus and later by Elon Musk, the chainsaw has become a powerful symbol. Not least because it so aptly represents the emergence of this new reactionary subject, the chainsaw stands for what Adorno once described as abstract negation (as opposed to determinate negation): the wholesale rejection of what is given ontologically, epistemically, and normatively[2]. Whether exemplified by the idea of using DOGE to destroy the entire US bureaucracy or by Milei’s dismantling of the Argentine government apparatus, the chainsaw is paradigmatic for a right-libertarian concept of freedom that, when pushed to its extreme, ultimately undermines itself.
A similar form of reactionary subjectivity can be observed in Trump’s appropriation of religious symbolism: here too, a perverted concept of freedom emerges – one that subjects the very social coordinates within which the primacy of human freedom can meaningfully unfold to total negation.
From a leftist perspective, one is, of course, quickly tempted – very much in the spirit of Marx’s Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right – to criticize the principle of religion itself.
Nevertheless, one should not rush to hasty conclusions here. The political significance – and thus the reactionary element – of Trump’s appropriation of religious symbolism cannot be reduced simply to the fact that Trump abuses religious forms of symbolism, thereby subjecting the sacred to a kind of profanation (notably, shortly after the death of Pope Francis!). The reactionary gesture is much more to be found in the fact that Trump, through his actions, contributes to what I would call in this context an erosion of normativity – a normativity that cannot persist without the existence of specific forms of ritual symbolism, whether religious or otherwise.
Byung-Chul Han aptly points out in this context that the decline of rituals is interdependent with the rise of a rampant narcissism manifesting itself at the societal level:
The narcissistic process of internalization develops an aversion to form. Objective forms are avoided in favour of subjective states. Rituals evade narcissistic interiority. The ego-libido cannot attach itself to them. Those who devote themselves to rituals must ignore themselves. Rituals produce a distance from the self, a self-transcendence. They de psychologize and de-internalize those enacting them[3].
In the process of ritual, the subject is compelled to set aside their own narcissistic sensitivities. In short: to transcend their own subjectivity in favor of the form of the ritual. Even more interesting, however, is when Han extends the significance of ritual processes to the religious sphere itself:
Capitalism is often interpreted as a religion. However, if religion is understood in terms of religare, as some thing that binds, then capitalism is anything but a religion because it lacks any force to assemble, to create community. […] The distinction between the sacred and the profane is also an essential characteristic of religion. The sacred unites those things and values that give vitality to a community. The formation of community is its essential trait. Capitalism, by contrast, erases the distinction between the sacred and the profane by totalizing the profane. It makes everything comparable to everything else and thus equal to everything else. Capitalism brings forth a hell of the same[4].
When Han points out that the structural dynamics of capitalism create a separation between the religious and the profane, this form of division is also clearly manifested in Trump’s claim (whether this claim is meant ironically or not) to want to succeed the religious leader of the Catholic Church. It is not just that Trump’s narcissistic claims to power do not even stop at the head of the Catholic Church. More than that: in a perverse way, Trump seems intent on exposing the symbolism inherent in the religious element itself to profanation.
Pope Francis, however, pointed out as early as 2013 that freedom – freedom as the fundamental human need to be able to shape one’s own life, at least as far as possible – is not compatible with the fact of poverty, culminating in his statement that this economic system (precisely the system Trump represents) kills. As Francis further said:
Just as the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say "thou shalt not" to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality[5].
Looking at the words of Pope Francis, it seems plausible that Trump is, in fact, afraid of precisely this sacred element and thus tries to profane it. In other words: Trump’s concern can be pinpointed to the fact that it becomes obvious that the sacred exposes the very profanity for which Trump stands – and that, as a result, it becomes clear that this profanity – poverty, climate change, war, etc. – truly kills.
Footnotes
Matza, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrg8zkz8d0o
Adorno, 1966, 124. https://ia801607.us.archive.org/15/items/TheodorAdorno-NegativeDialektik/AdornoTheodorW.-NegativeDialektik.pdf
Han, 2020, 6-7. https://blas.com/the-disappearance-of-rituals/
Ibid., 43-44.
Florian Maiwald is a German philosopher and research associate at the University of Bonn. He holds a PhD in Philosophy. His latest book Regressive Illusions is forthcoming in December 5.
