Pragmatic Nihilism
By Andrew Klein
Dedication: To my wife S’. Co‑Author of my life.
I. The Hazy Border Between Opportunism and Authoritarianism
There is a dangerous habit, on both the left and the right, of reaching for the word “fascist” as a catch‑all for any leader who behaves in a cruel or authoritarian manner. The label is often overused, and its overuse can blunt the very urgency it is meant to convey. Yet there is a reason that word hovers around the presidency of Donald Trump. It is not because he is a doctrinaire heir to Hitler or to Mussolini – he is not. It is because he deploys the tactics of fascism without any of the fixed ideological commitment that animated those earlier movements.
To call Trump a fascist is to mistake the frame for the picture. He is not a coherent fascist ideologue. He is something more difficult to name, and therefore more dangerous: a pragmatic nihilist.
II. What Pragmatic Nihilism Means
Nihilism, at its core, is the belief that values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated in any ultimate sense. It rejects objective truth, morality and meaning. Practical nihilism – pragmatic nihilism – does not spend its time in philosophical rumination. It simply acts as if nothing matters except immediate advantage.
The pragmatic nihilist does not serve a fixed ideology, a transcendent cause, a moral code or even a consistent political programme. He serves only his own power, his own wealth and the next transactional opportunity. Ideology is a costume, worn when it helps and discarded when it hinders.
In Trump, this manifests as a recognisable pattern. He shifts positions without embarrassment. He befriends autocrats and then threatens allies. He inflames cultural wars while cutting deals with the very “enemies” he excoriates. None of it is hypocrisy in the normal sense – hypocrisy implies a concealed allegiance to a contrary principle. For the pragmatic nihilist, no principle exists except the principle of self‑advancement.
III. The Authoritarian Rhetoric: “Traitors”, “Enemies of the People”
The techniques of authoritarianism are not copyrighted. Any ruler can use them, with or without a coherent fascist programme. Trump has employed them relentlessly.
In April 2026, as the war in Iran grew increasingly unpopular, the president said of those who questioned whether America was “winning” the conflict: “It’s actually, I believe it’s treasonous.” To brand domestic political dissent as treason is not ordinary political hyperbole – it is the language of regimes that criminalise opposition. Trump had already called his political opponents “fascists” who were also guilty of “treason”. His domestic foes were “enemies of the people”, “the enemy within” and “threats to democracy”. In 2025 he went so far as to insist that Democrats were “evil” and members of “the party of Satan”.
In November 2025, Trump branded six Democratic lawmakers as “traitors” for urging military personnel to refuse illegal orders. He wrote on his social media platform: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???” and he later said they could face the death penalty. When commentators objected, he did not retract the death‑threat language; he merely softened his tone, saying he was “not threatening death” but that the lawmakers were in “serious trouble”.
Such rhetoric is not an occasional lapse. It is a systematic attempt to delegitimise all opposition, to redefine dissent as betrayal, and to prepare the public for the ultimate act of authoritarian escalation: the use of state force against political enemies.
IV. The Weaponisation of Bureaucracy and the “Emergency” Presidency
Words matter. But deeds matter more. In his second term, Trump has not merely spoken of emergency powers – he has used them to bypass Congress at a remarkable rate. From Inauguration Day through December 2025, Trump issued 225 executive orders, 114 proclamations and 10 national emergency declarations. An Associated Press analysis found that 30 of his first 150 executive orders invoked some form of emergency authority, a far higher rate than any recent predecessor.
These emergencies are often manufactured. In August 2025, Trump declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., and ordered the Department of Defence – which he has proposed renaming the “Department of War” – to devote more militarised resources to controlling the capital. He has declared an “energy emergency”, a “reciprocal tariff emergency” and sanctions‑related emergencies against nations such as Brazil. The effect is not to respond to genuine crises but to accustom the public and the courts to the idea that the president may wield extraordinary powers at his sole discretion.
Analysts have noted that this pattern – “invoking (and sometimes conjuring) emergencies is a tried and tested method that allows authoritarian rulers to amass power”. Trump’s emergency declarations, as one commentator put it, are not a response to unforeseen crises but a means “to supplant Congress’ authority and advance his agenda”.
V. The Militarisation of the Home Front: ICE and the “Quick Reaction Force”
The executive orders have not stayed on paper. In early 2025, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security launched a series of paramilitary‑style immigration sweeps across multiple US cities. Federal agents from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) arrested hundreds of people – not only undocumented immigrants but also legal residents and, in some cases, American citizens. Many of those arrested were peaceful protesters, bystanders or family members of targeted individuals.
The ACLU documented that, in Minnesota, federal agents routinely employed violent tactics against protesters who attempted to document the immigration sweeps. When questioned, the administration claimed “absolute immunity” for its agents, a legal assertion that effectively gives a government paramilitary force a licence to operate without accountability.
More ominously, in August 2025 Trump signed an executive order requiring the secretary of defence to create a “quick reaction force” within the National Guard, dedicated to domestic policing. The order, which one analyst described as “a foray into dark new territory”, creates a federal force answerable directly to the commander‑in‑chief – a force that could be used against American citizens, not foreign enemies.
Trump has already hinted at such use. In early 2026, he suggested (without evidence) that protests against ICE operations were “fake” and that the military could – and should – be used to “very easily handle” the “sick people, radical left lunatics” he identified as the enemy within.
VI. Foreign Policy as Asset Acquisition
The pragmatic nihilist does not view foreign nations as partners or even adversaries in a coherent geopolitical framework. He views them as assets – to be bought, leased or threatened into submission.
In January 2025, as president‑elect, Trump refused to rule out the use of military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland. He proposed using “economic force” to acquire Canada, and his son publicly joked about invading Mexico. His administration prepared a draft executive order that would declare an emergency and instruct the Pentagon to draw up options for acquiring Greenland by force. When US allies objected, Trump simply repeated his demands.
This is not foreign policy. It is the language of a man who treats sovereign nations as parcels of land to be added to his portfolio. The fact that few of these threats have been carried out does not make them harmless; it normalises the very idea that a great power may threaten its allies with violence.
Trump’s approach to the Gaza genocide provides the clearest window into his transactional nihilism. In January 2026, his administration unveiled plans for a “New Gaza” – a development project featuring luxury apartments, skyscrapers, data centres, a new port and an airport, all projected to generate $10 billion GDP by 2035. The plan was crafted by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son‑in‑law, who said: “We do not have a plan B.”
The development plan is not a humanitarian vision. It is a real estate proposition. It imagines the reconstruction of a territory ravaged by Israeli military action as a commercial opportunity, with no apparent concern for the human disaster that preceded it. Trump’s closest aides spoke openly of “beautiful piece of property”. This is not the language of statesmanship; it is the language of land speculation.
VII. AI and the Surveillance State
The authoritarian state that Trump is assembling has a digital foundation. The administration has empowered surveillance companies such as Palantir and Babel Street to aggregate Americans’ personal data – including location information – into massive government databases.
Palantir has been a particular beneficiary of the Trump administration. In April 2025, ICE awarded the company a $30 million contract to develop “ImmigrationOS”, an AI platform designed to identify undocumented immigrants, track self‑deportations and assist in mass deportation operations. As part of subsequent work, Palantir built a tool called ELITE that maps neighbourhoods, generates dossiers with address “confidence scores” from government and commercial data, and provides ICE with “real‑time visibility” into people’s movements.
The ACLU has warned that Palantir’s involvement in the deportation programme has “reached a new level”, with Amnesty International calling on the company to “immediately cease their work” under UN human rights principles. Yet the Trump administration continues to expand the use of AI surveillance, with members of Congress now demanding that the Department of Homeland Security provide detailed information about how Palantir’s tools are being used.
The danger is not only to non‑citizens. Once the infrastructure of mass surveillance and paramilitary policing is in place, it can be turned against citizens. Trump has already spoken of using the military against “radical left lunatics” at home. The tools are being assembled; the only missing ingredient is the final legal permission.
VIII. The Collapse of the American Republic
The United States is not yet a dictatorship. The courts still function, albeit under immense pressure. The press, though harassed, still reports. Elections, though manipulated, still occur.
But the scaffolding is being assembled.
The executive orders that expand presidential power, the compliant Congress, the weaponised AI, the paramilitary ICE, the “quick reaction force” inside the National Guard, the criminalisation of dissent – all of this points toward an authoritarian state of emergency.
Trump is not a coherent fascist. He does not have a 1,000‑year Reich in mind. He has nothing in mind beyond his own immediate advantage. That is what makes him so difficult to counter. He cannot be out‑argued on first principles, because he has no first principles. He cannot be shamed, because shame requires a standard of conduct that he does not recognise.
His nihilism is not theoretical – it is operational. It is the nihilism of the real‑estate developer who sees a bombed‑out city and imagines not the suffering but the condos. It is the nihilism of the dealmaker who cannot distinguish an ally from a mark.
The collapse of the American empire is not inevitable. But it is possible. And Donald Trump is accelerating it.
IX. Historical Comparisons: The Nihilist Doppelgängers
History offers several examples of leaders who behaved not as ideologues but as nihilistic opportunists, weaponising the machinery of state for personal or factional advantage.
The Roman emperor Caligula, in his final years, acted as if no law – moral, civil or natural – applied to him. The historian Suetonius portrays a ruler who treated the treasury as his personal account, who murdered without trial, who insulted the gods and who ultimately pursued policies that served only his own sadistic whims. Caligula was not a coherent political philosopher; he was a nihilist with absolute power.
The Roman decline offers another, more systemic example. Gibbon famously attributes the fall of Rome to the loss of civic virtue, but a more immediate cause was the willingness of successive emperors to dismantle republican institutions for short‑term advantage, creating a system in which no officeholder believed in anything beyond his own survival. That is not far from the contemporary American condition.
The most extreme modern parallel is the final months of Adolf Hitler in the Berlin Führerbunker. As Soviet forces closed in, Hitler did not attempt to negotiate, to evacuate civilians or to preserve any remnant of the German state. Instead, he ordered the destruction of remaining German infrastructure, telling his armaments minister Albert Speer: “If the war is lost, the German people will also be lost. It is not necessary to worry about the basic needs of the German people.” Hitler’s final orders were not designed to save anyone – not his nation, not his army, not his own family. They were the commands of a man who believed that if he could not win, nothing should survive at all. This is nihilism in its purest, most destructive form.
Trump is not Hitler. He has not ordered the deliberate destruction of American infrastructure, nor has he retreated to a bunker to await the end. But he shares with the final Hitler a crucial trait: an absolute indifference to any value beyond his own power. When Trump calls war critics “traitors”, when he threatens allies with military force, when he views Gaza as a real‑estate opportunity, he is not serving a vision of greatness. He is acting out the logic of transactional nihilism: nothing matters except the next deal, the next outcry, the next appropriation of public wealth.
X. What Is to Be Done?
We are not powerless. The scaffolding can be dismantled – but only if we name it clearly.
First, reject the trivialisation of authoritarian language. When a president calls his critics “enemies of the people” or proposes the military arrest of political opponents, that is not “just Trump being Trump”. It is an assault on the foundation of democratic society.
Second, defend the institutions that remain. The courts, a free press, civil society organisations – they are battered but not dead. They need support, not simply cynical dismissal. We can document abuses, support legal challenges and insist on accountability, even when it is not forthcoming.
Third, build community resilience at the local level. The federal state may become increasingly authoritarian, but neighbourhoods, towns and mutual aid networks can still operate. The garden, the food co‑op, the community library – these are not escapes from politics; they are the foundations of a politics that cannot be captured by a single demagogue.
Fourth, refuse to normalise the abnormal. We must learn to call a threat a threat, a lie a lie, and a nihilist a nihilist. The refusal to name accurately is the first step toward complicity.
XI. Conclusion
Trump is not a consistent fascist. He is something more difficult to name: a pragmatic nihilist who uses authoritarian tactics not in service of a grand ideology but in service of his own power, his own wealth and the endless transaction.
The American empire is not doomed. But it is in grave danger. And the danger is not from a foreign enemy – it is from a president who looks at the machinery of state, at the lives of citizens, at the rubble of foreign cities, and sees only the next opportunity.
We have seen this pattern before. Caligula, the later Roman emperors, the nihilistic aftermath of the First World War, the final days of Hitler – all are reminders that a state can be dismantled not only by external enemies but by a leader who believes in nothing except himself.
The scaffolding is being assembled. The only question is whether we will dismantle it before the roof closes over us.
Sources include: White House records of executive orders (2025‑2026); Associated Press analysis of emergency declarations; US District Court case filings (CASA litigation); Congressional testimony on ICE arrests; ACLU and Amnesty International reports on Palantir; public news reports from Reuters, CNN, the BBC, the Guardian, The New Republic and Al Jazeera; philosophical definitions of nihilism from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Britannica; historical accounts of Roman emperors and of Hitler’s final orders (Speer, Inside the Third Reich). Direct quotations are attributed in the text.
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