It’s not only Americans who are obsessed just now – understandably in their case – with Donald J Trump. In the bits of Europe I live in he’s hardly ever out of the news. The same must be true in China, Russia, Australasia and South America. We can’t avoid him, much as some of us may want to.

In this regard there’s been no-one like quite him in world history since (say) Hitler. (Which is not to compare him with Hitler in most other respects.) This is remarkable; and all the more so in the case of a man as ignorant and stupid in most ways (not all) as he clearly is. He has some great – even revolutionary – achievements to claim already, half-way through his second term. His remaining two and a bit years – if he abides by the American Constitution’s 22^nd Amendment – may bring more. That of course depends to a great extent on the results of the Mid-Term Congressional elections coming up in November. It’s clear that his successes up until now have been eased by the complicity of the US Legislature, and to an extent of the judicial branch of the US government. That may change then, if enough of his Republican supporters fall.

But in any case Trump must be regarded as one of the most consequential of US presidents of the last 250 years. Leaving aside the question of how ‘great’ his achievements really are, which of course is highly controversial, depending on the criteria we use to measure them – ‘consequential’ doesn’t necessarily imply ‘good’, or ‘progressive’ or even (hopefully) ‘permanent’ – what does this say about his agency, or power? For a historian (like me) who is generally sceptical of the ‘Great Man Theory’ of history, this poses problems. How can a man like him – with none of the positive attributes of most former ‘Great Men’ – have had such a crucial personal impact – if only temporarily – on the history, not only of his own country, but arguably of the world?

My own answer is that he hasn’t, not really. Like other ‘Great Men’, he has risen to power partly fortuitously; but also in a way ‘naturally’, representing as he does some deeply rooted aspects of American culture and national identity, which are sometimes (not always) omitted from liberal Americans’ own national self-image: the ‘democratic’ and ‘anti-imperial’ one. It’s that self-image that Trump is deliberately endeavouring to restore today, in his assaults on more implicitly critical versions of American history; in order to ensure that young Americans are only introduced to ‘patriotic’ versions of their national story, in the histories they read, are taught, or find in museums. (See https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/attacks-history-timeline-trump-administration/). That seems to me to be a perversion of my discipline, if ever there was one. (It’s not of course confined to the USA. It used to be broadly true in Britain too.)

The characteristic American historical trends he represents – and remember that he has a very poor grasp of historical detail (George Washington securing the airports, for pity’s sake!: https://time.com/5620936/donald-trump-revolutionary-war-airports/) – include the following. There’s the colonialism and overt imperialism that created the original thirteen States, and have continued in more ‘informal’ ways to the present day; followed by the genocide of almost an entire people and its culture; and one of the most brutal slave régimes in history. Since then we’ve seen endemic racism; mass prison incarceration; an embedded gun-culture; the excesses of a virtually unrestrained capitalism, including rampant financial corruption (Trump is part of that) and huge social and economic inequalities; a troubling ‘Wild West’ mythology; ‘Christian nationalism’; militarism and war-mongering; and the ‘heroes’ thrown up by Hollywood – to name perhaps the main ones. All these are some of the traditions and trends, arguably more powerful than the more celebrated ‘liberal’ ones, often directed by malign forces, and fuelled by propaganda and popular ignorance – which have propelled Trump into power, quite apart from his personal volition. He is, in other words, simply a creature of his time, and of one side of the history of his country. His ‘achievements’ should not be credited, or debited, to him alone.

‘That’s not who we are’, my American friends may say. But they must admit that it is at least part of what they are; a part that is well represented – for the time being – by Trump. You could of course make the same kind of judgment of any nation whose ‘identity’ is similarly divided – Britain certainly, and even my adopted country of Sweden, despite its happy, consensual reputation. (Undercurrents – perhaps from the Viking age – seem to be emerging to the surface here too.) But in America’s case the dichotomy is more apparent, and – because the US is a ‘superpower’ – more significant for the world.

So: perhaps we critics of Trump shouldn’t focus on him so much (entertaining though he is, for those of us out of his direct line of fire); and more on the country he is supposed to be running; whose dark embedded values my be the true source of America’s present plight.