In an earlier essay, The Law of Power – Ten Rules for Dirty Games, I quoted Austrian satirist Karl Kraus’s observation on demagogues: the demagogue’s secret is to make himself as stupid as his followers, so the followers can see themselves as intelligent as the leader.
I want to build on Kraus’s insight because his analysis, from over a hundred years ago, directly addresses a primary force in today’s American political and cultural landscape: the deliberate manipulation and erosion of language as a core mechanism of demagoguery.
MAGA is not a new phenomenon but rather a repetition—patterns identified nearly a hundred years ago appear again today.
History does not repeat itself exactly, but it often reappears in new forms.
Kraus focused not on power, economics, or state structures, but on language: on how words detach from responsibility, truth, and decency.
His insight was simple and brutal: when language collapses, society soon follows. Authoritarianism, moral decay, and war are not deviations, but consequences.
This perspective is unsettling because it shifts responsibility. Traditionally, we blame dictators for societal failures, but Kraus argues the problem begins earlier with the conditions that enable them.
Seen in this light, Trump is not an anomaly but a symptom of broader forces. He exemplifies how degraded language, stripped of truth and responsibility, can produce and legitimize political figures who thrive within that degraded environment.
For Kraus, language is formative. When words lose their grounding in truth, they become tools of power, the environment Trump navigates.
Trump rarely lies in the usual sense. Many of his falsehoods are so blatant, they serve less to persuade and more as loyalty tests: Are you with me, or not?
When supporters repeat these claims, the issue is not persuasion but belonging. Reality is defined socially, not empirically.
This echoes Kraus: language ceases to describe the world and instead marks who belongs. Words become identity markers.
Kraus’s sharpest criticism was of the press, not because it was wrong, but because it normalized thoughtlessness: trivializing the extreme and making the dangerous routine. Today, this mechanism is amplified in Make America Great Again.
The media covered every Trump outburst, norm violation, and shock, often with moral indignation and commercial gain. The result was not understanding, but resignation. When everything is a scandal, indifference follows.
It is uncomfortable to admit that Trump was not exposed by coverage but produced by it.
This is not an accusation but a description of a system that rewards attention over judgment. Kraus would recognize the dynamic immediately.
Kraus did not exaggerate; he quoted. The grotesque arose not in his texts but in reality, with a countryman starring. When Hitler seemed absurd, society already was. Trump, similarly, reflects this. His vulgarity, narcissism, and contempt for norms are usually explained psychologically. But Kraus’s view points elsewhere: Why does this work?
The answer disturbs: demagogues gain power because they fit a linguistic and moral climate where shame is an obstacle, ruthlessness an advantage.
Kraus put it best: when the sun of culture is low, even small men cast large shadows.
One of Trump’s key strategies is presenting ruthlessness as honesty. While earlier politicians hid cynicism behind politeness, Trump drops the mask. For many, this feels liberating: finally, someone who “tells it like it is.”
Kraus warned against this logic. When decency is dismissed as “fake” and brutality mistaken for realism, society has abandoned moral language. Cruelty becomes not just acceptable, but admirable. Trump offers not solutions, but permission.
Permission to be angry.
To be afraid.
To be bitter.
And to call these emotions patriotism.
Kraus’s analysis reveals that responsibility for America’s current politics is systemic: language has detached from truth, media incentivize noise over judgment, and identity supersedes shared solutions. Trump embodies, rather than originates, these shifts.
This does not mean that everyone is equally to blame. But it does mean the problem is far larger than Trump.
Kraus did not believe exposure alone brings improvement. He wrote not to reform, but to bear witness—a necessary, uncomfortable role, easily lost where the emptiest barrels make the most noise.
To read Trump through Kraus is to recognize that the heart of the issue lies in society’s collective relationship to language and meaning, not in the figure of Trump himself. Leadership of this kind emerges only when language enables it.
Featured image © Eldar Einarson
