How Should a Stoic React to Trump?

I’ll start by saying that the asking of this question shouldn’t be triggering to you. Trump is (now, again) the leader of America, and a Stoic ought always to be willing (and wanting and waiting) to consider the moral uprightness of their nation’s leadership.

In this week’s edition I won’t be judging the sitting President’s past or present actions, nor will I be making predictions about his future actions. Instead, I will try to help you gain clarity on what you ought to be doing as a citizen of the Cosmopolis and America while under the authority of this new government (understanding, of course, that not all my readers are American).

Remember that Trump is an indifferent, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t matter.

No man, nor woman, nor any external has the power to control how we choose — this power resides exclusively with us and our rational faculty.

Everything but our choice(s) is an indifferent thing^[1] .

However, Stoics cannot be indifferent about indifferent things.

Indeed, all indifferents that we encounter (or become otherwise aware of), must be considered.

The way we consider indifferent things is a direct reflection of the progress we’ve made on our journey toward moral excellence.

Our rational consideration of Trump (or anything or anyone) is the nexus at which we exercise our understanding of Virtue.

As Stoics, we absolutely should not take the path of least resistance when choosing how we to respond to Trump and his reelection — love him or hate him.

To abandon our roles in pursuit of passions is both unjust and inappropriate.

Our passions concerning Trump — our elation, or our rage — must not overtake our ability to think clearly in identifying what is morally Just and Appropriate (as far as our behaviors, actions, responses, and reactions are concerned).

If we’re angry, our urge may be to lean into that anger to express it at all costs.

If we’re elated, our urge may be to give a free pass to our new President and look the other way no matter what he chooses to do with it.

The former is undirected, self-indulgent venting of rage — a useless exercise — while the latter is blind allegiance and moral dissociation (disengagement).

These are neither Just nor Appropriate ways of conducting ourselves as Stoics.

We are, first and foremost human beings. This means one of our duties, so long as we’re Stoics, is to care for, benefit, and work together with other human beings. This is central to Stoic ethical theory, and Marcus Aurelius speaks plainly about it in Meditations 2.1 (and a handful of other meditations) when he says:

We will sometimes disagree with what is best for the Cosmopolis, there can be no doubt of that, but our political squabblings should never cloud the fact that our aim (as Stoics) isn’t to be politically dominant (or to, for lack of a better term, “win”). Instead, it is, in no small part, to be in service to the greater good and to help one another, for this is what is in alignment with Nature.

So, then, in our consideration of Trump (as well as of his cabinet and the present dominant Republican leadership in Washington) we must ask ourselves one question above all others: Does Trump (et al) behave in a way that suggests a solemn commitment to the betterment of the whole of the Cosmopolis?

Once we answer that question, we ask a second: what is the morally appropriate course of action my philosophy (Stoicism) reasons me to, given the answer to the first question?

Whatever the answer is, that’s what we do.

Thanks for reading.

^[1]  For the purposes of our discussion, anyway. We don’t need to “well actually” ourselves into the deepest depths of Stoic physics and ontology. Something is an indifferent if it lacks the ability to hinder or aid our pursuit of Virtue. Broadly speaking, the only thing capable of doing this is our rational faculty — how we think and choose.