The Trump regime that is directed and defined by billionaire privilege, white supremacy, racial dehumanization, and opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion is not an aberration. It is, in fact, a faithful reflection and extension of the Western Grand Narrative.
The Western Grand Narrative is the overarching historical story that Europe and its settler offshoots (e.g., the United States) has told about themselves for centuries. This narrative rationalizes and justifies conquest, enslavement, and extermination by defining Indigenous Black peoples as less-than-human, savage, or needing civilization (African Colonization). It celebrates the extraction of resources, labor, and capital from the non-white world as evidence of divine favor and personal merit (avaricious accumulation and hoarding of wealth).
The Western Grand Narrative breeds a deep existential fear that oppressed peoples, particularly African/Black people, once free, will demand justice, restitution, and restructuring, which would end white dominance (fear of reprisal/reversal). Euro-American (White) psychology is the legitimizing arm of the Western Grand Narrative. By defining Eurocentric norms as universal, disguising systemic oppression under the myth of individualism, pathologizing Blackness, and erasing spirit-defined and communal dimensions of human existence, it operationalizes and refines the Western Grand narrative as “scientific.”
Euro-American psychology particularly elevates the idea that individuals are self-contained, autonomous, and solely responsible for their outcomes (rugged individualism). The contemporary operationalization of the Western Grand Narrative standardized by Western white psychology defines power as white, wealth as virtue, and Blackness as threat. Claiming to be “objective” and “value-free,” Euro-American (White) psychology ignores that its very foundations were built during eras of invasion (not exploration), colonialism, dehumanizing human trafficking (not slavery), and scientific racism. It focused heavily on identifying disorders, dysfunctions, deficits, and conflict, particularly in marginalized groups.
From Drapetomania and Dysesthesia Aethiopica (Samuel Cartwright) to Intelligence Testing (Francis Galton, Lewis Terman, Henry Goddard) to Cultural Deficit Models (Oscar Lewis, Daniel Moynihan) to White Normativity of Developmental Personality Theories (Erik Erikson, Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Jean Piaget) to today’s overdiagnoses, cultural incompetence, and structural blindness, Euro-American (White) psychology has historically and continues today to harm Black communities by framing resistance, survival, and cultural kinship as sickness.
This clinical gaze that pathologizes Blackness continues to see Blackness as deviancy. Euro-American psychology did not simply ‘reflect’ anti-Blackness, it produced, codified, and weaponized it under the guise of objective science.
Euro-American (White) psychology forged the ideological blueprints that continue to justify Black oppression today. In Trump-era governance, psychological psycho-pathic racial frameworks (Bobby Wright, 1974[1]) justify policies that deepen racial and economic hierarchies while denying their existence.
[1] See, Wright, B. (1974). The Psychopathic Racial Personality. Black Books Bulletin.
Trump's governance and the psychology that gives it legitimacy is simply a repackaging of these old tenets in new language, "Make America Great Again" echoes colonial nostalgia for white man’s burden (domination); "law and order" reinforces a racialized control of Black and Brown bodies; opposition to DEI is a defense of existing racial hierarchies; Billionaire rule celebrates wealth extraction as virtue, not theft; and, fear-mongering, about immigration, Black activism, non-white equity and multiculturalism mirrors the historical fear of white extinction.
Donald Trump has referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and nations in Africa as “shithole countries.” Earlier, in response to a document listing how many immigrants had received visas to enter the United States in 2017, it was reported that the President complained that more than 2,500 were from Afghanistan, a terrorist haven; Haiti had sent 15,000 people and they “all have AIDS;” and that forty thousand had come from Nigeria, to which Mr. Trump added, “Once they have seen the United States, they would never go back to their huts in Africa.”
Clearly Trump’s psycho-pathic racist governance exalts and assumes that Euro-American culture is the standard; multiculturalism is seen as an attack on “American values” and supports policies that claim not to be racist, while producing racist outcomes (e.g., voter ID laws, gerrymandering) and legitimizes heavy policing, mass incarceration, and militarization of communities of color and using trade tariffs to force other countries to his will. Therein, Trump’s psycho-pathic racist governance justifies cutting social programs, rejecting reparations, imposing sanctions and opposing DEI initiatives as “special treatment.”
Not an Aberration
Trump’s governance is not an accident. The current Trump psycho-pathic racist governance is the living, breathing child of the Western Grand Narrative, which builds on the supremacy of whiteness, the entitlement to domination, class conflict, the dehumanization of Blackness, and the worship of wealth as proof of worth. What we are seeing today is not a danger to democracy nor a disruption of Western tradition; it is its fulfillment and inevitable expression. What we are witnessing under the current Trump governance is the consolidation of a “White Oligarchic Evil-State.”
It is a system where billionaire privilege shields the wealthy elite from accountability, while white supremacy reasserts itself as the foundation of national identity. This governance is fueled by a deep and enduring fear of Blackness, fear of Black sovereignty, Black imagination, and Black power. Through racial dehumanization, it attempts to strip marginalized communities of their intrinsic worth and dignity, treating them as threats rather than as citizens.
It actively opposes diversity, equity, and inclusion, labeling efforts toward justice as ‘divisive,’ while upholding the myths of colorblindness and meritocracy. Equity is dismissed, inclusion is attacked, and the very idea of shared dignity is undermined.
This is not merely bad governance; it is a deliberate reinstallation of racial and economic hierarchies. It is a coordinated backlash against the very notion of a truly democratic, pluralistic society. And it must be called what it is: a White Oligarchic Evil-State, designed to protect the powerful, dehumanize the vulnerable, and erase the future possibilities of justice, freedom, and collective flourishing. Everyone should vette (judge) all of Trump’s executive orders and public policy initiatives against his support for white supremacy, billionaire privilege, fear and hatred of Blackness, class conflict, opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the weaponization of whiteness and white privilege as the foundation for American national identity. He and his government should be seen for what it is, a “White Billionaire Oligarchic Evil-State.”
Nkrabea and Akoben
This moment demands not just resistance but re-Africanization, epistemic sovereignty, and a total restoration of Black wellness across realms of reality. From our inception, the ABPsi has directly and indirectly refused and rebuked the Euro-American psychological scaffolding that upholds the Western Grand Narrative. Many Black psychologists have insisted on re-centering African spirit(ness), communal personhood, and the sacredness of being as the foundation for Black psychology.
The ABPsi’s historical evolution, philosophical and epistemic paradigm-shifting that attempts to take the authority to unapologetically and uncompromisingly embrace, establish, and honor independent African thought and praxis is needed more than ever. An African (Black) psychology and praxis dedicated to the liberation of the African Mind, empowerment of the African Character, and enlivenment and illumination of the African Spirit is essential.
This revolution is more than about altering systems or governments. It is “paradigm shifting” in the meaning of being and how reality is perceived, lived, and understood. It is transforming the framework of meaning, value, and truth. Our revolution should embody the bridge between ancestral wisdom and futuristic liberation.
The thrust of the times we live in both makes and challenges who we really are. This time of Trump’s psycho-pathic racist governance will clarify who and whose is the ABPsi. In effect, the ABPsi’s identity should be one that reclaims original order, restores sacred balance, and reimagines existence by realigning human life with ancestral truth, cosmic law, and liberatory purpose across visible and invisible realms. Knowing what it means to be Spirit Beings is no small task. It is nothing less than the key to our future salvation, sensibilities, and aspirations.
This is once again our time to fulfill our Nkrabea (divine destiny) and carry the Akoben (war horn).
Baba Dr. Wade Ifágbemì Sàngódáre Nobles is a Co-Founder and Past President, The ABPsi. He serves as Chairperson, ABPsi Pan African Black Psychology Global Initiative. Dr. Nobles is Professor Emeritus, Black Psychology and Africana Studies, SFSU as well as Founder and Executive Director, The Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family Life & Culture, Inc.
