{"id":269,"date":"2026-05-22T17:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=269"},"modified":"2026-05-22T17:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:45:14","slug":"trump-joins-the-ranks-of-authoritarian-superlosers-top-historian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=269","title":{"rendered":"Trump joins the ranks of authoritarian ‘superlosers:’ top historian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump loves to assert that he\u2019s a \u201cwinner.\u201d Way back in February 2016, he promised, \u201cWe are going to win so much.\u201d Then almost exactly 10 years later, in February this year, he declared, \u201cOur country is winning again. In fact, we\u2019re winning so much that we really don\u2019t know what to do about it. People are asking me, \u2018Please, please, please, Mister President, we\u2019re winning too much. We can\u2019t take it anymore.\u2019\u201d For those who can\u2019t take it, renowned historian Timothy Snyder has good news: Trump \u2014 and by extension the United States \u2014 is now a \u201csuperloser.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s latest early-morning grievance session reveals what he\u2019s really worried about<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Snyder, \u201cA superloser is a leader of a great power, or (onetime) superpower, whose disastrous choices lead to a crash. He possesses a combination of skills that allow for a rise to personal power and the collapse of state power.\u201d He goes on to explain the \u201cfive C\u2019s\u201d of the superloser phenomenon.<\/p>\n

First is \u201cconflict.\u201d For both Trump and Putin, disastrous wars in Iran and Ukraine have weakened them politically and the countries they lead globally. Both former superpowers have revealed the limits of their military might and have had their economic and diplomatic standings shredded by losing major wars. <\/p>\n

Second is a broken \u201cconcept\u201d of power. Both Russia and the US have betrayed existing power structures in ways that weakened rather than strengthened their reach. Russia had historically sat in a balancing position between Europe and China, but its invasion of Ukraine destroyed EU relations, forcing it to strengthen its reliance on China, and having lost the war, effectively making it a \u201csatellite\u201d of China. According to Snyder, \u201cThe US has likewise betrayed its own concept of power\u201d as the hegemony that gave it dominance following WWII has been torpedoed by Iran and Trump\u2019s other diplomatic mistakes.<\/p>\n

Third is corruption. Both Trump and Putin have made it very clear that they serve \u201csmall oligarchical clans\u201d above anyone else, including the key interests of their countries. And as Snyder explains, \u201cIf you can\u2019t think in terms of the interests of your state, it\u2019s unlikely that the wars that you start are going to make sense. And neither the war against Ukraine nor the war against Iran made any sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fourth, \u201csuperlosers cooperate with each other,\u201d which Snyder says is \u201cin a way paradoxical, because when a loser helps a loser, one ends up with more losing.\u201d Putin can help Trump gain power, who in turn ends up diminishing U.S. power. At the same time, Trump\u2019s actions in Iran have benefited Russian oil interests by driving up demand, but this takes away Putin\u2019s excuse for why the war was going so badly. While Putin used to claim the West was undermining Russian efforts, \u201cnow that the U.S. is on the side of Russia, there\u2019s no excuse\u2026 So the loserdom is contagious,\u201d and \u201cneither of them has any excuse for why they\u2019re losing so badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more America\u2019s closest allies see \u2018no point\u2019 in negotiating with Trump<\/a><\/p>\n

Snyder says that a fifth aspect of superloserdom is charisma. It took a special type of charisma for Trump and Putin to attain and hold power, and once they had it, they proceeded to set their nations on the path to loserdom. <\/p>\n

All of this, says Snyder, adds up to a sixth \u201cC,\u201d which is China, to which both Russia and the U.S. are now ceding power. <\/p>\n

Snyder asserts that both are now subordinate to China. As noted above, the war with Ukraine has pushed Russia more firmly into Chinese orbit. At the same time, Trump lost a trade war with China, which was then further empowered by the blowback from his decision to launch war with Iran. Now in recent days, \u201cboth Trump and Putin have had to pay court to Xi in Beijing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The situation is surprising, Snyder says, because \u201cobjectively,\u201d China has been facing decline and shouldn\u2019t have been able to catch up to the US. \u201cBut superloserdom has the power to change all of that. What it has done is allow the relative decline of China to be eclipsed by the absolute decline of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018President under siege\u2019: Trump revelation proves he\u2019s retreating to his \u2018bunker phase\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump loves to assert that he\u2019s a \u201cwinner.\u201d Way back in February 2016, he promised, \u201cWe are going to win so much.\u201d Then almost exactly 10 years later, in February this year, he declared, \u201cOur country is winning again. In fact, we\u2019re winning so much that we really don\u2019t know what to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump joins the ranks of authoritarian 'superlosers:' top historian - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=269\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump joins the ranks of authoritarian 'superlosers:' top historian - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Donald Trump loves to assert that he\u2019s a \u201cwinner.\u201d Way back in February 2016, he promised, \u201cWe are going to win so much.\u201d Then almost exactly 10 years later, in February this year, he declared, \u201cOur country is winning again. 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