Is Trump the Duryodhana of Our Time?

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“An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground… to rule over the ashes.” — Attributed to Sun Tzu

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Whether or not Sun Tzu ever wrote those words, the sentiment captures an enduring truth: when the ego feels its power slipping, it would rather destroy than yield.

 

This is the pattern of delusion that Vedanta calls avidya—ignorance of what is real. When self-knowledge is absent, control becomes the last refuge of identity. The result is ruin disguised as victory, domination mistaken for strength.

 

History has seen this pattern many times. Empires fall not from outside invasion but from within—from the blindness of leaders, who confuse their own survival with the world’s. It is the psychology of adharma: to mistake possession for protection, vengeance for justice, self-interest for destiny.

 

This, too, was Duryodhana’s disease. And through him, the Mahabharata gives the archetype form: the man so captive to pride that he would set the field ablaze rather than lose his claim to it.

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In the early 21st century, the United States finds itself in an uncanny position. A former reality television host, twice-impeached, four-times-indicted, credibly accused of sexual assault, and prone to meme-coin grifts and foreign bribes, has returned to the highest office in the land. What once would have disqualified a politician has now become political currency. The grotesque has become normalized. The cartoonish, elevated. The unprecedented, routine.

 

Many recoil. Others cheer. But regardless of political orientation, the question nags: How is this happening? How does a man like Donald Trump not only survive, but thrive on the national stage?

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This essay does not seek to vilify, nor to absolve. It seeks to understand. Not as punditry, but as philosophy. Not as reaction, but as discernment.

 

Vedanta teaches that when discernment collapses—when appearance is taken for substance—what follows is not just disorder, but a loss of dharma. A crisis of dharma. One name for this condition is kali yuga: the age of darkness, distortion, and confusion. But another, more precise term is maya — the power of illusion that projects unreality and veils what is real.

 

To better grasp the moral and spiritual implications of the Trump phenomenon, we turn to a much older story—the Mahabharata, and the figure of Duryodhana. The question is not whether Trump is Duryodhana, but whether he serves the same archetypal function: that of the ego-bound disruptor whose fall is inevitable, but whose presence reveals the deeper illnesses of the age.

 

Duryodhana: The Ancient Blueprint of the Unyielding Ego

 

Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kauravas in the Mahabharata, is not a villain in the traditional sense. He is not irrational or insane. He is a ruler-in-waiting, educated, charismatic, and brave. And yet, he is also deeply insecure, power-hungry, and constitutionally incapable of self-reflection. He knows what is right but cannot act on it. He knows what is wrong but cannot refrain.[1]

 

This is the tragedy of Duryodhana. He is not simply evil; he is avidya made manifest. His self-delusion, once empowered, becomes tyrannical. He is not content to live and let live; he must dominate, humiliate, and avenge. His ego is not merely inflated; it is weaponized.

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Yet perhaps what is most striking about Duryodhana is not his character, but the company he keeps. Bhishma, Drona, Karna—figures of immense wisdom and capability—all fight on his side. They do so not out of agreement, but out of protocol, loyalty, debt. This is what makes the story so psychologically piercing.

 

Duryodhana is not a lone tyrant. He is the gravitational center of a larger failure—a moral inertia that overtakes those who should know better. In this way, Duryodhana is not merely a character in an ancient epic. He is an archetype. A recurring pattern in human history. A warning. And perhaps, he is a mirror.

 

Trump: Archetype or Anomaly?

 

Trump’s behavior is not difficult to describe, but it is difficult to believe. His political identity is constructed entirely on performance, grievance, and dominance. He ridicules norms, eschews policy detail, and governs not through deliberation but through spectacle. What seems incoherent is, in a way, the point. He thrives not despite the chaos—but because of it.

 

And yet, like Duryodhana, Trump is not an isolated problem. He is surrounded by enablers—advisors, media figures, political strategists—who benefit from his chaos and contribute to it. His success is not rooted in strategy but in resonance. He resonates with grievance. With fear. With those who feel mocked, displaced, or left behind.

 

But more than anything, he resonates with ego. Not the quiet self-confidence of maturity, but the agitated, compulsive need to be seen, praised, obeyed. He is, in this way, not an anomaly, but an archetype: the unchecked ego given power, amplified by spectacle, and reinforced by the very culture it degrades.

 

Trump does not elevate. He inflames. And his enduring popularity says less about his character than it does about the collective psychological condition of a country entranced by its own projection.

 

Propaganda vs. Protocol: The Ecosystem of Delusion

 

One of the key differences between Trump and Duryodhana lies in the structure of their support. Duryodhana's followers did not believe in his cause per se. They followed out of duty, personal debt, and the rigid hierarchies of a dharma-based society. Their tragedy was misguided allegiance. They knew better and acted anyway.

 

Trump, by contrast, has risen in an environment where duty is no longer tied to dharma, but to narrative control. His base is shaped less by loyalty than by propaganda—by a media ecosystem that rewards tribalism, stokes grievance, and turns every moment into spectacle. Fox News and social media platforms serve not as neutral observers, but as amplifiers of maya by distorting reality and consolidating false identity.

 

In this sense, Trump is not just a strongman. He is a product of the information age’s collapse of discernment. His is an assault on dharma that tries to normalize what each of us, intuitively, knows is wrong. On the surface, it’s spiritual warfare—a dimming of the light, a kali yuga. But underneath, it’s a society wrestling with its inner architecture, as defined by the gunas:

 

• Sattva (clarity): calling for truth, ethics, restraint.

• Rajas (movement): seduced by power, spectacle, and emotion.

• Tamas (inertia): clouding judgment, numbing outrage, and excusing what should be intolerable.

 

This is not just political misbehavior. It is an attempt to remake the moral character of the nation in the image of its most damaged leader. Duryodhana’s war was physical. Trump’s is psychological. But the goal is the same: to replace clarity with confusion, and dharma with delusion.

 

A Puppet King for Bigger Agendas

 

Trump’s appeal is not rooted in ideology, but in personality. He thrives on spectacle, grievance, and chaos—but lacks a coherent vision of governance. This makes him uniquely useful to those who do have a vision, and who need a figurehead to carry it forward.

 

One such example is Project 2025—a detailed and deeply ideological blueprint aimed at restructuring the U.S. government along authoritarian, theocratic, and anti-democratic lines. Trump himself may not have read the document, may not understand it, and may never mention it. But he doesn’t have to. He is the front man, not the architect. His volatility provides the perfect cover for the steady hands guiding the deeper agenda.

 

This parallels Duryodhana’s own court. His decisions often hinged on the advice of Shakuni, the cunning uncle who saw strategy where Duryodhana only saw rage. Duryodhana wanted revenge; Shakuni wanted power. Duryodhana provided the charisma and entitlement; Shakuni exploited it for long-term gain.

 

In the same way, Trump provides the affect—rage, humor, victimhood, dominance—while others move the pieces in the background. These background forces are not bound by tamas alone. They exhibit rajas—purposeful ambition, cold calculation, and a clear goal. And in doing so, they harness the tamas of the people and the rajas of policy to erode whatever sattva remains.

 

Trump is not just a leader. He is a mask. And what lies behind the mask may be even more dangerous than the mask itself.

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What This Reveals About the Collective Mind

 

If Trump is a symptom, then the real illness lies deeper—in the collective psyche of the nation that empowers him. Trump does not create the conditions of his popularity; he exploits them. He is the mirror held up to a population overwhelmed by confusion, resentment, and fear.

 

From a Vedantic standpoint, this is not a question of politics but of spiritual maturity. The jiva, the individual, remains caught in samsara as long as it is ruled by unconscious desires and attachments. Multiply that dynamic across millions, and you get a society incapable of seeing clearly, let alone acting wisely.

 

People follow Trump not just out of ideology but because he confirms their sense of victimhood, their craving for dominance, their desire to be told they are right. He relieves them of the burden of self-inquiry. He speaks not to their intellect, but to their ego, promising safety through separation, power through grievance.

 

In this way, the crisis is not just Trump—it is what he awakens and validates. A society governed by tamas and rajas will naturally gravitate toward leaders who reflect those same forces. Until sattva—the guna of clarity, humility, and discernment—is cultivated collectively, the pattern will repeat.

 

This is not new. The Mahabharata warns of this very thing: that when dharma weakens in the minds of the people, adharma takes the throne. And yet, the epic does not conclude in despair—it prepares the ground for awakening. Trump, then, is not just a warning. He is a test.

 

The Mirror and the Mandate

 

If Trump is the Duryodhana of our time, then we are the ones living through a new Kurukshetra. Not a battlefield of weapons, but of worldviews. The struggle is no longer over kingdoms, but over meaning, clarity, and moral orientation.

 

Duryodhana was not defeated by argument. He was defeated by his own delusion. The Mahabharata shows us that the battle was never just between Pandavas and Kauravas—it was between discernment and ego, between dharma and self-deception.

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Trump and his MAGA movement, too, will fall—not necessarily in political terms, but spiritually. The arc of adharma bends toward collapse. But the question remains: what will we learn from it? Will we meet delusion with more delusion, or will we respond with vision, restraint, and courage?

 

We are not asked to hate. Nor to despair. We are asked to see clearly. To resist the seduction of outrage and instead step into buddhi, into viveka, into dharma. Not because it guarantees success, but because it preserves the “soul.”

 

In the end, the true test is not Trump. It is us.

 

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[1] This verse is commonly associated with Duryodhana, expressing his internal conflict between knowing what is right and failing to act accordingly. It is found in the Pandava Gita, a devotional compilation drawing from various texts, including the Mahabharata, which is considered the original source.

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The full verse:

“Jānāmi dharmam na cha me pravṛttiḥ,

jānāmi adharmam na cha me nivṛttiḥ;

kenāpi devena hṛdi sthitena,

yathā niyukto’smi tathā karomi.”

 

Translation:

“I know what is dharma, yet I cannot bring myself to act accordingly.

I know what is adharma, yet I cannot refrain from it.

It is as though some god resides in my heart and directs me—

I act as I am compelled.”

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This verse is one of the most psychologically revealing, expressing the dilemma of a soul caught in the bondage of ego and conditioning. In Vedantic interpretation, it highlights the jiva’s lack of ultimate autonomy—suggesting that the true doer (karta) is not the individual, but Ishvara (God), the inner controller of all beings.

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This essay is part of series​ that explores the ancient concept of dharma as both diagnosis and prescription for our modern malaise. Drawing from Vedanta and mythology, each piece offers a lens through which to understand our turbulent world—not as a random mess, but as a lawful unfolding shaped by deep patterns.

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