President Trump’s Inaugural Speech and the Political Psychology of Sea Energy

By Bruno Sowden-Carvalho

Donald Trump’s pledges to rename the Gulf of Mexico, to rechristen Mount Denali as Mount McKinley, and to ‘take back’ the Panama Canal, are all meant to evoke America’s imperial previous. Bruno Sowden-Carvalho analyses how the emotional enchantment of sea energy and ontological safety sheds gentle on the political psychology behind Trump’s motivations

Hanging options of Donald Trump’s 2025 inaugural speech have been his pledge to rename the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America’ and to revert to calling Mount Denali Mount McKinley. Trump linked the financial legacy of President William McKinley, who served 1897—1901, to Theodore Roosevelt’s improvement of the Panama Canal (which Trump additionally hinted at ‘taking back’).

What does this Gulf of Mexico-McKinley-Panama hyperlink reveal about Trump 2.0 and twenty-first century geopolitics? The reply lies within the human psychological drive to really feel a secure sense of self, or ontological safety, and the emotional enchantment of sea energy throughout America’s late nineteenth-century enlargement.

Ontological safety and hallucinations of the ‘Self’

Ontological, from the Greek ontos that means ‘being’, refers back to the discourse and observe of ‘being you’. An individual is ontologically safe after they really feel psychologically complete by a way of self that separates them from others and the atmosphere. We nurture this sense by the tales we inform about ourselves, our routines, and the narratives that socially anchor us.

Cognitive psychologists have more and more urged this sense of stability is a ‘controlled hallucination’. The human mind constructs actuality by producing predictions, and masking modifications to keep up coherence. For the sake of allostasis — the regulation of change to make sure the physique’s survival — the mind advanced to be change-blind. More often than not, we don’t understand vital bodily or environmental modifications. This creates the phantasm of continuity and wholeness, which nonetheless is sensible and actual. The unitary Self is, subsequently, an ongoing emotional assemble.

Simply as people sense that their Self is in management, so too do worldwide actors. Not as a result of these actors ‘have’ feelings however, slightly, as a result of feelings form what people understand the state to be, which in flip defines who they’re.

When the US Navy names one in all its plane carriers after a former president, it imbues the machine with emotional cost

For instance, when the US names an plane provider after a former president, that imbues the machine with emotional cost. This reinforces the ‘controlled hallucination’ that America(ns) is/are united and complete. Such symbols outline what America is, and isn’t — delineating emotional boundaries between Self and Different.

Political issues come up when such a constructed Self is challenged — because it has been by pandemics, grassroots protests, and shifting world dynamics — producing nervousness, mistrust, and worry. So, from the angle of ontological safety, politics can also be a contest to find out which feelings matter. Whereas worldwide actors can by no means be absolutely ontologically safe, they try to assemble a coherent Self by symbols, narratives, and rituals.

A recipe for maritime dominance

Analyzing Trump’s inaugural speech by this attitude is revealing — not least as a result of Trump narrowly prevented the destiny of President McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901. Nevertheless, the deeper connection between McKinley’s administration, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Panama Canal lies within the idea of sea energy within the American Self.

The bestselling 1890 e-book The Affect of Sea Energy upon Historical past by Alfred Thayer Mahan (1660–1783) articulated this idea by figuring out its geographical, social, and political components. Mahan argued that sea energy decided the prosperity of countries: those that grasp its components with highly effective navies can command the seas. Conveniently, he used Britain — main maritime energy of the time — as proof for this speculation.

Mahan’s mission was to galvanise public opinion and policymakers to broaden America’s Navy through the unsure late nineteenth century, when rising powers like Germany, Italy, and Japan, together with colonial competitors, have been all stoking nervousness. Whereas motivations for naval enlargement already existed, Mahan crystallised them right into a persuasive narrative that fashioned the scaffolding for the ontological safety the US sought.

Historian Alfred Thayer Mahan crystallised motivations for naval enlargement right into a persuasive narrative that helped safe US maritime dominance

In an 1897 paper, Mahan’s sea energy argument highlighted the strategic significance of the Gulf of Mexico. He in contrast the Caribbean to the Mediterranean, figuring out chokepoints such because the Yucatán Channel and Florida Strait as essential for controlling commerce and army actions. He additionally emphasised Cuba’s geographical place as key to dominating the area. Linking this to the rising curiosity in an Isthmian canal (later the Panama Canal), Mahan argued that such a canal might safe US maritime dominance and ‘advance civilisation by thousands of miles.’

Illustration of a naval battle at Santiago de Cuba, 3 July 1898, Spanish-American conflict.
Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of the Library of Congress
The emotional enchantment of sea energy

An early beneficiary of Mahan’s concepts was President McKinley. Much more receptive to such notions was his Assistant Secretary of the Navy, one Theodore Roosevelt. In 1898, throughout McKinley’s presidency, the US waged conflict towards Spain underneath the guise of liberating Cuba. In the end, nevertheless, it ended up annexing territories together with the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii.

Whereas ‘yellow journalism’ might have enhanced the conflict’s emotional enchantment, such victories bolstered Mahan’s earlier narrative. This consolidated the emotional foundations of America’s Self, and fed the nation’s urge for food for sea energy.

All through the 20th century, the emotional symbolism of naval energy helped propel the US to changing into a superpower shaping the principles of the worldwide system

When, in 1904, President Roosevelt oversaw the development of the Panama Canal to unite the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, Mahan was a global determine, and sea energy already inscribed in America’s Self. All through the 20th century, this pattern continued, and sea energy turned a core emotional aspect infusing America’s Self with a ‘controlled hallucination’ of stability, continuity, and determinism. It helped propel the US to change into a superpower whose naval capabilities formed the principles of the worldwide system.

Trump’s ‘hacking’ of the American Self

Whether or not deliberate or not, by carving out an uncommon Gulf of Mexico-McKinley-Panama hyperlink, Trump touches a nerve which supplies an essential emotional tone to his geopolitical targets. His often-provocative speeches happen in communication channels ripe for stirring feelings — whether or not on X or, more and more, in podcasts.

To make use of neuroscientist Andy Clark’s terminology, Trump 2.0 could be ‘hacking’ the ‘American Self’. He’s evoking historic narratives and previous experiences that create various psychological photographs of the US, and pursuing a way of ontological safety that’s emotionally nurtured by his personal supporters. If his concepts take root extra extensively, they might pose a grave threat to world geopolitical stability.

This text was initially printed at The Loop and is republished right here underneath a Artistic Commons license.

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Beforehand Printed on theloop.ecpr.eu with Artistic Commons License

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