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Trump’s Playbook Mirrors Another Historical Tyrant, Mao Zedong

Trump has learned the authoritarian’s dystopian rule that the way to maintain power is to dumb down the population and to deny and obliterate the nation’s understanding of its own history.

The sentiment was clearly reflected in “1984,” George Orwell’s novel about totalitarian society where nothing exists except that which the party says is right. As with Orwell’s party, trump has no desire to preserve history; in fact, he is bent on distorting the record.

As Orwell wrote:

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Trump has parallels with many historical totalitarian leaders but the similarities with one particular ruler are uncannily precise. That would be Mao Zedong, the founder and supreme leader of the People’s republic of China from 1949 to is death in 1976.

Trump’s adoring followers revere him as a god and tens of thousands come to worship him, cheering and proudly wearing their red MAGA hats, symbols of their total fealty to their dear leader.

In the presence of Mao, the throngs showed their total devotion not by waving red hats but little red books. The books, “Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong” or more commonly known as “Mao’s Little Red Book,” were a collection of Mao’s statements from 1964 to about 1976 and widely distributed during the Cultural Revolution. Chinese citizens were required to have a copy on them at all times and were expected to memorize passages and be able to recite them upon request.

Mao maintained control largely through a cult of personality that was anchored in a propaganda blizzard that included posting billions of romanticized images of Mao through China. Posters on huge billboards showed a proud, fatherly and courageous Mao gazing into the distance for China. In some, he wears the clothes of the worker, standing in front of an industrial scene. Others show joyous Chinese party members, men, women, young and old, proudly and ecstatically waving their red books.

Mao’s face was on the front page of *People’s Daily*, where a column of his quotes was printed every day. Mao’s selected works were later printed in even greater circulation; the number of Mao’s portraits produced (1.2 billion) exceeded the population of China at the time, in addition to a total of 4.8 billion Chairman Mao badges that were manufactured. Even during the Cultural Revolution, Mao badges were extensively collected, traded and given as gifts.

Trump is no less a cult figure. He has carefully cultivated an image of faux heroism and great wisdom as he has blanketed the MAGA nation with self-aggrandizing merchandise. His version of Chairman Mao badges are the Trump Patriot Badges, selling for $299.99 for two badges or $1,999.99 for 30 badges, including three free ones. The badges are distributed by an Idaho company, ClickBank, a subsidiary of Keynetics, Inc. of Boise, Idaho.

The round, gold-colored badges have etchings of trump surrounded by the words “Make America Great Again,” “In God We Trust” and “Donald J. Trump.

“Trump Badges are cherished pieces of political memorabilia, filled with love and demonstrating loyalty to Donald Trump, endorsing his run for president in 2024,” says the ads begging for sales.

There are thousands of kinds of merch. Some refer to trump the savior. One has the image of an angry but defiant trump, raising a bloodied hand after an assassination attempt. Other posters show a muscular, Rambo trump, bearing a fearsome automatic rifle. MAGA clothing for sale extols “God is my savior, Trump is my president” and “God, Guns and Trump.”

Mao was deified as a quasi-religious symbol; to many he was not just a unifying symbol, but he represented all that was right and good in China. To his loyal followers, Mao defined all that was Communist China.

As with Mao, trump has molded himself into a symbol of the ideal country. He has told his followers that he and only he can guide the nation out of its decay and rot. To many his words are unassailable and to Christian nationalists he is nearly on a par with God. It was God’s hand that intervened in trump’s election, it was God who wanted trump to be president.

Mao was not religious and neither is trump. But Mao and now trump convince followers that they are the personifications of God, and it takes an article of faith to follow their self-professed divinity.

Mao and now trump strived to dominate every aspect of life in America, from government to education to the economy. Trump coopts the Christian nationalists with the promise of ruling a nation in line with their religious principles.

Mao redefined society, revised history, burned books and rejected intellectuals. His adoring followers revered him as a god. Millions came to worship him, waving their red books. He ran military parades in his honor until the parades got too expensive.

Since the founding of the people’s republic to 2009, China held 14 National Day grand military parades in 1949–1959, 1984, 1999, and 2009. On Oct. 1, 1949, the first parade hailed Mao Zedong as he inaugurated the People’s Republic. Standing on the Gate of Heavenly Peace, he addressed a crowd of about 200,000 on the recently cleared Tiananmen Square and reviewed the passing of new Communist state’s first official military parade.

Plans are progressing for a four-mile-long military parade on June 14, to celebrate both trump’s 79th birthday and the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary. The massive North Korean or Russian style parade would flow from Arlington, Va., and into Washington, D.C. It was unclear if the event will feature heavy military equipment, such as missile launchers or planes, as trump once desired during his first term.

After he won his first term, trump asked staff at the Pentagon to send him photos of military tactical vehicles he could use for an inaugural parade. The Pentagon was hesitant to comply, because of exorbitant costs. Ultimately, there was no giant parade but there was a 20-plane flyover.

It would have cost an estimated $92 million to put troops and tanks along the streets of Washington, D.C., according to Pentagon estimates in 2018. It would cost another estimated $21.6 million to the District of Columbia for hosting the event. Trump had initially said the parade would cost $12 million.

Books Banned

Books were banned under Mao as part of the overall effort to control and mold the people. Books were banned for many reasons, including having objectionable content, sexual content, a potential to foment revolution and the perceived ability to “bewitch readers.”

During the Republican Period before Mao, 1911–49, the Nationalist government in power banned works by leftist political theorists, novelists, and essayists, publications advocating for Marxism and Soviet Russia, texts that supported the theoretical and social foundations of communism, and translated works and erotica. A notable victim of the bans was Lu Xun, the writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic now considered a founder of modern Chinese literature.

Books banned during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), after Mao came to power, included classics of Western literature and books by Chinese authors that did not confirm to mainstream political ideologies. In the 1950s writers such as Hu Feng and Lu Ling dared to criticize Mao’s political and utilitarian view of literature. They quickly became the objects of a national media assault that led to arrest, imprisonment, and the purging of their literary works from mainstream society.

Book banning under Mao was part of a broad effort at brainwashing the Chinese people to the so-called benefits of Mao’s communism. Mao saw his role as leading a relentless struggle for economic and social reforms and for the minds of the people. Mao rejected intellectuals as counter-revolutionary.

“Our aim is to ensure that revolutionary literature and art follow the correct path of development and provide better help to other revolutionary work in facilitating the overthrow of our national enemy and the accomplishment of the task of national liberation,” Mao wrote. “In our struggle for the liberation of the Chinese people there are various fronts, among which there are the fronts of the pen and of the gun.”

To Mao, all forbidden culture was counter-revolutionary. To trump, all the “woke” culture needs to be silenced, from any talk about transgendered people to affirmative action to anything sounding remotely like critical race theory. Trump’s bellicose language targets books referring to gender ideology or topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI.

In an executive decree, trump ordered a halt to all government spending on “exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.”

Trump is determined to whitewash the nation’s history books and to get rid of any honest telling of this country’s historical faults, whether in school curriculums or the Smithsonian Institution.

The administration has ordered books to be removed from all Defense Department schools that reflect the LGBTQ movement and any references to race as a factor in the nation’s history or any subject considered as “racial indoctrination.” Under trump’s direction, children’s books are being pulled from library shelves for review. Around 67,000 children attend Pentagon school globally.

Staff have been instructed not to use personal pronouns in email signatures and schools were ordered to stop celebrating cultural observances like Black History Month.

Materials on the Arlington National Cemetery website highlighting the graves of Black and female service members vanished or were obscured. An article on the Defense Department website devoted to Jackie Robinson’s military career went away but later reappeared. Another Defense Department page featuring the biography of Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers, a Black Army general who received the Medal of Honor, also disappeared before being restored.

Much of the movement toward book bans have been led by private groups that have brought their demands to local school boards.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights took a truly Orwellian position when it said it was ending “Biden’s book ban hoax” even as PEN America counted more than 10,000 instances of school book bans in the 2023–2024 school year, nearly triple the number in the previous year.

Trump has become untethered in his push to mold culture and art to his beliefs. He fired the entire staff of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, claiming they were all disloyal, woke Democrats, and named himself as director. In past years, the prestigious center honored artists from Earth, Wind & Fire to Billy Crystal to Francis Ford Coppola. Trump wants to extend the honorees to notable figures from sports, business and politics. That could include such trumpian figures as Kid Rock, Steven Bannon and Hulk Hogan. Trump has suggested he may even host the ceremony.

During Mao’s Cultural Revolution, schools were closed, and radical Red Guards went on a rampage, destroying temples, Buddhist statues and works of arts, and trashing anything that smacked of tradition.

Trump is trying to shutter schools that do not follow his orders while he tries to defund the National Endowment for the Arts and urges removal of any statues or works of art that reflect reasoning and freedom of thought. He has called on the Smithsonian Institution to promote “American Greatness,” complaining the institution had advanced “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”

He singled out the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is within the Smithsonian Institute. Trump said the museum had “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology” and that it promotes “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”

There is a reason Trump is so determined to root out any honest telling of this country’s historical faults, whether in school curriculums or the Smithsonian Institution. He wants to eliminate any opposition and has begun undermining universities and colleges by withholding funding if they do not walk the Trumpian line. And very much like Mao, trump is most concerned with any objections expressed by from college professors, writers, journalists and doctors.

Mao led the disastrous Great Leap Forward, a campaign between 1958 and 1960 to modernize China’s agricultural sector using communist economic ideologies. It was a bloody failure, resulting in mass starvation, execution, economic devastation and one of the largest non-wartime mass killings ever.

Trump’s first term, stubborn policies badly bungled the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic that claimed 400,000 lives. But trump’s own Great Leap Forward may be unfolding in plain sight as he fires thousands of federal employees and rejects all of the experts in ordering massive trade tariffs that threaten to destroy the nation’s and much of the world’s economy.

Mao had his teenage Red Guards, a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Mao to enforce the Cultural Revolution. Trump’s version of the Red Guard is one Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who has plundered every agency of government as part of the DOGE or Department of Governmental Efficiency movement.

Mao’s forces defeated the nationalist government, which withdrew to Taiwan in 1949. In taking over the government, Mao’s plan was nothing less than a total destruction of the Nationalist government policies and replacing them with a one-party state controlled by the Communist Party.

Trump also is insistent on destroying the U.S. government so he can replace it with a new and dictatorial, one-party rule with him at the helm.