"American psycho"
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Walter Baier is not indulging in gratuitous insults when he analyses 'pathology in power'.
In the latest newsletter of the European Left, of which Baier is president, he shows how the categories of psychoanalysis can help us understand the nature of the US leadership as Trump and his desperadoes fail epically to come to terms with the dynamics of national decline and crisis.
Baier writes: 'While Israeli and American bombs detonate over Tehran, extinguishing thousands of lives, Donald Trump is already selecting his next target: Cuba. “I will liberate it or take it over. I think I can do whatever I want with it.”
'Such statements point to a pathological disposition. Yet pathology alone does not explain the pattern of violence: the genocide carried out with U.S. approval in Palestine, the abduction of the Venezuelan president and his wife, the attack on Iran.
'History offers precedents. Hitler and his circle were pathological figures, as well. But without the Great Depression, and without being elevated to power by the most reactionary factions of German big capital, they would have remained what they once were: marginal, ridiculous figures on the fringes of the Weimar Republic.
'The United States today is in a different kind of crisis. It emerged from the Cold War as the sole superpower, only to find its economic, technological, and political dominance today increasingly contested. At the same time, capital itself has been transformed. Digital conglomerates, tech billionaires, and financial giants now form an oligarchy largely insulated from democratic control. Their arena is global. Their business model recognizes only expansion, or decline.
'Trumpism, therefore, is not merely a personal aberration. It signals the determination of this new oligarchy to assert and expand its dominance. International law—and the institutions meant to uphold it, particularly the United Nations, is an obstacle to be bypassed, undermined, or discredited.
'More than a decade ago, the late Pope Francis warned that the world was entering what he called a “world war fought in instalments.” What once appeared as isolated conflicts have now coalesced into a growing constellation of simultaneous wars.
'Today, global politics is overshadowed by the war in the Middle East. The ring of fire is widening, stretching across the region toward Iraq, Cyprus, Turkey, the Indian Ocean, and potentially beyond.
'With the revival of the Monroe Doctrine, the Trump administration has once again turned its attention to Latin America and Cuba. The economic, financial, and commercial blockade against Cuba remains a clear violation of international law.
'The European Union, meanwhile, responded to Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine with sweeping sanctions and extensive military and financial support for Ukraine. Yet violations of international law by the United States and Israel remain unanswered. This complicity has eroded the EU’s credibility worldwide.
'Rather than correcting course, Ursula von der Leyen appears intent on deepening this contradiction. In her address to EU ambassadors in early March, she argued that the EU must no longer see itself as merely the custodian of the old world order but must “project its power more assertively with all of our tools, whether economic or diplomatic, technological or military.”
'Europe does indeed need real autonomy. But it is a dangerous illusion to believe that this can be achieved by joining an escalating imperial contest of military power.
'The risk of a broader global military escalation is real. But history is not fate. Periods of intensification are also periods of possibility. Wherever workers strike, wherever people rise against austerity, wherever movements organize against war and exploitation, counterforces emerge.
'What is decisive is unity. Not tactical fragmentation. Not ritualized division. But international solidarity. Trade unions, social movements, and left-wing parties must combine their forces. The conflict is global. The response must be as well'.
As Baier's piece shows, psychological issues shaping US policy and actions cannot be reduced to the eccentricities - and worse - of particular individuals (weird as some of those are). The problems, and the violence and political degradation they lead to, are systemic.
In a typically thoughtful and stimulating blog on the New Left Review website, Richard Seymour writes that 'the offensive against Iran might be interpreted as a violent displacement activity on the part of a declining empire confronted with a rival centre of capital accumulation in the Pacific, about which it seems able to do nothing rational or constructive. It is a symptom of secular decay – of the political authority of the American bourgeoisie, the political capacities of the permanent state and the intellectual calibre of its overseers'.
Seymour's points about the orientation of European countries (in which category we of course include the dis-UK) to the US, and in particular the craven position taken by most social democratic 'leaders', reminded us of something which our late comrade Willie Thompson used to say: that there is indeed a 'special relationship' on the part of the US towards our Westminster politicians - but only in the same sense that Willie's neighbour's dog had a 'special relationship' with a particular lamppost at the bottom of his street.
In today's context shaped so strongly by American pathology in power, it is important to highlight progressive initiatives which are taken in response. The European Left do so in expressing full solidarity for today's 'International Convoy “Nuestra América,” an act of resistance that will deliver essential aid to Cuba on March 21 by land, sea, and air, breaking through the illegal and inhumane blockade imposed by the United States'.
Published 21 March 2026.
Democratic Left Scotland is proud to be a partner organisation of the Party of the European Left, which links us to a range of left-wing, green and radical parties and organisations, large and small, across our continent.
