The very speed of the US President's counter-revolution has disconcerted the country's opponents
The great English radical thinker Thomas Paine wrote in his influential pamphlet, Common Sense: “The cause of America is, to a large extent, the cause of all mankind,” arguing for American independence from British rule and the establishment of a republican government guaranteeing individual rights and liberties.
This pamphlet, which sold over half a million copies before the end of the American Revolutionary War, was published exactly 250 years ago, on January 10, 1776. Ironically, this anniversary comes at a time when the American cause and global freedom are crumbling, with the fundamental principles of 1776 being trampled by the radical American counter-revolution of 2026.
Donald Trump and his administration are demonstrating a blatant disregard for democratic and legal constraints, transforming America into the antithesis of Paine’s vision. In a matter of days, the United States kidnapped the president of an independent nation, seized the country’s oil wealth, asserted its right to seize any ship on the high seas, and reiterated its plan to annex the vast Arctic island of Greenland, a semi-autonomous region of Denmark.
Paine’s vision has been subverted
Even before the thirteen colonies declared their independence, Paine was convinced they had already established a society superior to those of the Old World. He described America as “a haven for lovers of civil and religious liberty from all over Europe. They fled here, not from the mother country, but from the cruelty of tyrannical regimes.”
Today, those fleeing cruelty and brutal authoritarian regimes rarely turn spontaneously to the United States. What would Paine say about the masked ICE paramilitaries who terrorize immigrant communities, constantly demonized and branded as criminals and foreigners by Trump supporters? What would he say if he had seen the videos of the brutal murder of 37-year-old Renée Nicole Goode in Minneapolis?
An amateur poet and mother of three, she was seen swerving her car to avoid the ICE agents, all of whom were overweight and seemingly harmless, when one of them shot her at point-blank range. With monstrous audacity, Trump and his odious clique of fanatics and extremists claimed that this supposedly terrified woman was a terrorist using her car as a deadly weapon to run over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. In an abject accusation, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asserted that Goode was committing “domestic terrorism.” Minneapolis law enforcement, under the authority of the FBI, refused to investigate the incident.
A relentless campaign of violence is being waged against anyone deemed an enemy of Trump’s authority, both at home and abroad. In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller explained: “You can talk all you want about international courtesy and all that, but we live in a world—the real world, Jake—ruled by force, by authority.” He added that the United States is a superpower and will act as such.
Ordinary Americans are in danger too
Because authoritarian governments tend to act the same way both domestically and internationally, it is not surprising that the White House is treating the Democrat-controlled, anti-Trump cities of Minnesota and Oregon with the same “law of force” mentality it applied to Venezuela and Greenland. Venezuelan sailors clinging to a shipwrecked boat in the Caribbean are perceived as a potential terrorist threat and killed, as is an American mother surrounded in her car by armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) paramilitary agents in Minneapolis.
Paine was well aware of the danger posed by demagogues in post-independence America, but he believed that this danger could be averted through rules-based representative government. He warned that, without this guarantee, “a desperate adventurer might emerge, exploiting popular discontent and rallying the desperate and disillusioned, and, by seizing the reins of government, might sweep away the liberties of the [American] continent like a torrent.”
Two hundred and fifty years later, the deluge Paine feared has arrived, crashing over the United States, its destructive waves growing stronger every day. Resistance has been caught off guard time and again by the extremism and violence of this Trumpian counterrevolution. In 1776, the transformative power of the American Revolution stunned the world, and even many revolutionaries.
Arriving in Philadelphia from England eighteen months before the publication of his book Common Sense, Paine, with simplicity and persuasive force, helped shape and disseminate a political program centered on national independence. A pragmatist rather than a utopian, he viewed what was happening in America as a true human renaissance.
Later, many ridiculed these hopes for America, calling them hypocritical and pointing to slavery, racial discrimination, and social inequality. But the idea that the United States was a society for the rest of the world to emulate never completely disappeared. It survived the shock of a brutal Civil War between 1861 and 1865, thanks in large part to Abraham Lincoln, and the near collapse of American capitalism after the 1929 crash, thanks to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal.
Trump’s America is entering a new dark age
Trump’s second term put an end to all that. The United States began to be seen as a model to be avoided. The country had become the monster that exiles once fled. And the demise of that ideal happened with lightning speed. Trump demonstrated that he relied solely on brute force. His success was not inevitable; it required a dysfunctional Democratic Party in the United States and European powers preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, seeking to appease him like an autocrat—a humiliating and futile effort, given his contempt for weakness.
As Trump seized control of the centers of power, the speed of his counter-revolution disconcerted his opponents. Naturally, those who resist him adhere to the rules they wish to preserve, which presents a formidable obstacle for those who seek to abolish them. Moderates, when they engage in a struggle, always demonstrate moderation and have proven easy prey for Trump’s power-hungry loyalists.
Payne would have been horrified by what happened, but unlike most of Trump’s opponents, he would have taken up arms. He was a rare figure: a moderate revolutionary, ready to fight relentlessly for admittedly limited but essential goals, such as establishing individual and national liberties and combating oppression, both domestic and foreign. He believed his era would be dubbed the “Age of Enlightenment,” heralding a new and better world.
Until recently, this optimism seemed logical. Today, we seem trapped in a Trumpian time machine, hurtling us back toward a new era of irrationality and violence.
Further Thoughts
Paine’s most famous and influential pamphlet, Common Sense, explains with remarkable clarity why the thirteen colonies should aspire to independence under a republican government with limited powers and an egalitarian approach.
Rereading this pamphlet in the Trump era, Paine’s arguments against the monarchy seem more relevant than ever. He asserts, for example, that “in England, the king has little occupation but to wage wars and distribute offices; which, in other words, impoverishes and divides the nation… One honest man in the eyes of society and God is worth more than all the crowned scoundrels who ever existed.”
Paine is a fascinating figure, a relentless critic of the rich and powerful. I discovered his work last year during a short stay in Lewes, East Sussex, where he had previously worked as a customs officer and where he wrote his first pamphlet (In Defence of Customs Officers). I stayed in an inn he frequented for debates and observed a tobacconist’s shop on the main street where he lived.
He was energetic, resolutely determined, and exceptionally courageous. A republican and supporter of the French Revolution, he sat in the National Convention and was virtually the only one to oppose the execution of Louis XVI in 1793 because of his opposition to capital punishment. This stance led to his imprisonment and nearly cost him his life. He wrote to George Washington: “To take part in two revolutions is to give meaning to one’s life.” His writings deserve to be read today, as we seem to be entering a new era of tyranny.
Beneath the Radar
I’m not good at choosing book titles. Few writers are, for a simple, though not immediately obvious, reason: when an author has spent months, even years, writing a book, they already know its content intimately. It then becomes extremely difficult for them to put themselves in the shoes of a potential reader who knows nothing about the work but needs to be both informed and captivated.
In 2020, I published a book entitled “War in the Trump Era: Defeating ISIS, the Fall of the Kurds, and the Struggle Against Iran.” In retrospect, it remains perfectly relevant, as it covers the first three years of Trump’s first term in the White House and the impact of his policies on the Middle East.
This period, which now seems like a distant memory, was marked by fierce wars, particularly in Iraq and Syria, most of them against ISIS. The book begins with the nine-month siege of Mosul in northern Iraq in 2016, which coincided precisely with Trump’s election. It was a decisive defeat for the Islamist terrorist group.
The book ends with the assassination, in early 2020, of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who commanded pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, on Trump’s orders. His assassination, a surprise US drone strike at Baghdad airport, marked a turning point in Iranian influence in the region. This scenario is very similar to the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3. Trump abhors all-out wars because they are chaotic and uncontrollable, but this is not a case of targeted violence against individuals.
When Trump lost the 2020 US presidential election and the Capitol riots further tarnished his image, I mistakenly believed his political career was over. I didn’t expect Democratic leaders to play such a destructive role in keeping Joe Biden in the White House. Since Trump seemed to be a thing of the past, I persuaded the publisher to change the paperback title to “Behind the Enemy’s Lies”—a clever play on words, I think, even if no one else noticed.
Cockburn’s Picks
Over the Christmas and New Year holidays, I watched a series of films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger which, in my opinion, remains the most profound and intelligent series of British films ever made. I don’t know which is my favorite, but A Matter of Life and Death, The Life and Death of Colonel Plimp, I Know Where I’m Going!, The Canterbury Tales, The Tales of Hoffmann, and The Red Shoes are certainly among my top twelve. They are all well worth seeing.