Francis Fukuyama: 'Trump is the most disappointing thing that's happened' in decades
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FRANCE 24 spoke to Francis Fukuyama, author of the 1992 book "The End of History and The Last Man", in which he asserted that the end of the Cold War had established the dominance of liberal democracies. The Stanford University professor said that the election of US President Donald Trump is "the most surprising and the most disappointing thing that's happened" since he wrote the book. "He's clearly a leader with authoritarian instincts," Fukuyama stated, adding that Trump "is in the process of trying to cut an extremely shameful deal with Russia over Ukraine".
History, it seems, didn't end. The world has been experiencing a "democratic recession really now for about 15, almost 20 years," Fukuyama acknowledged on FRANCE 24.
The Stanford University professor argued that this backsliding stems not from economic factors, but from a deeper "frustration with the existing democratic world".
"People want more. They want to be recognised. They want to have their dignity asserted," he explained. "A lot of people don't want to simply be that last man," he added, referring to the democratic citizen who emerges at the end of history. "They want something more. And if that means struggling against democracy, that's what they're going to do."
Can democracy 'self-correct'?
Donald Trump "doesn't like respecting the rule of law," Fukuyama noted, adding that "the worst part of it is that the American people elected him a second time, even though in the 2020 election he clearly tried to stay in office illegally."
And "it's very hard to find an actual principle underlying Trump's foreign policy other than personal self-interest", Fukuyama said. He cited Trump's treatment of India, where the US "threw away" a decades-long strategic relationship because Prime Minister Narendra Modi "wouldn't support his bid for a Nobel Peace Prize." Fukuyama added: "He's basically subordinated American national interests to his personal vanity."
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But the philosopher remained cautiously optimistic. "The good thing about a democracy is it can self-correct," he said, pointing to recent Democratic electoral gains and Trump's falling popularity. "I think we can already see the peak of Trump's power and a slow decline."
More broadly, Fukuyama expressed hope that democracy could still triumph in the long run: "We've had setbacks in the 1930s, in the 1970s before. So I think the story isn't quite completed."
