Julia Lovell,
As liberal critics of the Trump presidency have scrambled for traction since January, one historical analogy seems ubiquitous: “If you want a model for what’s happening to America,” economist Paul Krugman wrote in April, “think of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.” From the New York Times to the Guardian to a slew of Substacks, commentators have presented Donald Trump as the U.S. incarnation of the Great Helmsman.
Like Mao Zedong, these pundits say, Trump is mobilizing an insurrectionary base to destroy bureaucratic and cultural elites, has created a cult of personality in which the leader’s will overrides all else, and is brutally intolerant of his ideological enemies.
Julia Lovell is a professor of modern Chinese history at Birkbeck, University of London and the author of books including Maoism: A Global History.
Nicholas Guyatt is a professor of North American history at the University of Cambridge.
Read More On China | Culture | Donald Trump | History | Politics | United States
U.S. President Donald Trump looks down and adjusts his suit lapels as he poses alongside other leaders standing in rows for a family photo. The leaders around him face the camera and smile.
Iranian protocol soldiers stand guard during a ceremony to mark the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution at the mausoleum of Iran's late founder of Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran on Feb. 1, 2006.
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