“One act of perfidy fully established becomes the
ruin of its author. The man who relinquishes confidence in his good faith gives
up the best basis for future operations. Who will knowingly build on a
quicksand?”—American historian William H. Prescott (1796-1859), The History of the Conquest of Peru (1847)
In the dark annals of the Spanish conquistadores, Francisco Pizarro (1471–1541), pictured here, looms large, not just for his cruelty
but for the treachery that underlay it. Centuries later, historians are still
coming to terms with how, against all odds, on alien ground, he subjugated the
numerically superior, longstanding Inca civilization in Peru.
In these days, following the midterms, Americans
face a far more overwhelming task—figuring out, in real time, how to stem an
onslaught that surpasses Pizarro’s in audacity: the assault of Donald Trump on virtually every norm
and institution that have supported the American democratic republican
experiment. But in a sense, that attempt at understanding revolves ultimately
around what made it all possible—Trump’s “perfidy”—and its damage to America,
at home and abroad.
“Perfidy” has an old-fashioned ring to it, much like
“mendacity,” but it covers even more about Trump than it did about Pizarro. The
synonyms associated with it encapsulate the full range of the horror of Trump’s
past rise and current reign of folly and madness: duplicity, deceit,
double-dealing, untrustworthiness, breach of trust, and, in Trump's baldfaced use of hacked messages supplied by Russia in the 2016 election, treason.
At this point, it is useless to expect the President
to crack a book (let alone one featuring Latin American history). But, if he
were inclined to do so, Trump might learn much from the history of Pizarro.
For all the comfort he might derive from the initial
to middle portions of this narrative, in which Pizarro overcomes grave doubts
at the Spanish court about the perils and costs of discovering and conquering the Inca civilization,
the President would be unsettled by its denouement: a fractious atmosphere in which the
Spanish victors turn on each other, in a murderous fallout over the division of
the spoils.
Even more disturbing to the President would be the
cause of the unrest: Pizarro’s “ruling motives”—in the words of the author of
this magisterial history, William H. Prescott, the Inca conqueror’s “avarice
and ambition.” Peru existed to be exploited for the benefit of Pizarro, his
brother Hernando and his illegitimate children, not unlike how Trump family has
monetized the American Presidency for their own company.
In one of the most vivid catchphrases of the last
few weeks, Trump, contrasting his administration with President Obama’s, spoke
of “Promises made, promises kept.” In terms of specific vows to the
conservative wing of the Republican Party—on Supreme Court justices, tax cuts,
and increased military spending—that might be the case.
In terms of vows to the nation as a whole, however,
the string of broken promises is immense: “draining the swamp” of corruption;
health-care benefits as generous but less costly than Obamacare; “the best
people” to staff his administration; infrastructure projects that would put
people to work at long last; and greater respect abroad.
Throughout his Presidency, even throughout his
career, Trump has displayed an abiding appreciation for foreign strongmen who flagrantly
disregard human life: Vladimir Putin, of course, but also North Korea’s Kim
Jong-un and Saudi Arabia’s murderous prince, Mohammed bin
Salman.
In the domain he carved out for himself within the
Spanish Empire, Pizarro exhibited these same tendencies. Most notoriously, in
1533, he kidnapped the Incas’ chief Atahualpa, assured him of his release if he
received a ransom in gold (enough to fill an entire room), then permitted his
men to execute the chief after a mock trial. “Like many an unprincipled
politician, he wished to reap the benefit of a bad act, and let others take the
blame of it,” Prescott writes. Who does that sound like?
From start to finish, Prescott judged roughly but
all too accurately, Pizarro’s conduct toward his victim was “stamped with
barbarity and fraud.”
If one defines “ruthlessness” as a willingness to crush
anyone who stands in the way of one’s personal needs, Pizarro fulfills the
criteria to a remarkable degree, as does Trump.
The results of Pizarro’s strategies disproved
historian Arnold Toynbee’s claim that civilizations die not by murder but by
suicide. Everything achieved by the proud native Incas was destroyed by the
conqueror and his soldiers.
For all the hordes of gold that Pizarro and his
associates sought for themselves, they could not place a commensurate amount of
trust in each other. How could they, when they had watched how Pizarro had
taken advantage of Atahualpa’s trust?
In fact, a split with Pizarro’s longtime partner, Diego de
Almagro—swindled at the court of the Spanish king out of a major leadership role in Peru—led
to civil war, Almagro’s defeat and execution by Pizarro’s brothers (the only
people the conquistador could trust).
Pizarro’s end—assassination at the hands of an armed
band, led by Almagro’s son and namesake, that overcame resistance at his palace
in 1541—lies, justifiably, beyond the boundaries of a law-based, democratic
society like the United States. But a less violent, though equally possible,
outcome is well within the realm of possibility.
Without a common enemy—and sometimes, even with
one—a band of thieves and usurpers, lacking faith in each other, exhibit no
loyalty free from fear. Paranoia then becomes the order of the day.
Having grasped so desperately for power, Donald
Trump can never live another easy day while in office. He will forever be
wondering who will turn on him in a court of law. At the same time, American allies are, even now, wondering which international treaty that Trump will break, and whether he will share intelligence with a foreign power, as the President did by divulging to Russia classified information provided by Israel.
The question then becomes if he will wreck the
American system and the worldwide Pax Americana that has held sway since the
end of WWII, as Pizarro did to destroy the Incas.
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