By Mathias Risse
The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to encourage debate on important public policy challenges.
1. The Spirit of America
“Spirit of America” is one of the state slogans of Massachusetts, prominently appearing on license plates, including mine. Using this slogan is somewhat presumptuous, but Massachusetts is where the American Revolution started. The phrase evokes a symbolic shorthand for national ideals, identity, and ethos. It is so colloquial that it has no single, clear historical origin. Over the centuries, the phrase has appeared in political rhetoric, literature, and public discourse. From the Revolutionary era, when pamphleteers invoked liberty, civic duty, and self-governance, to Transcendentalists like Emerson, who celebrated individual moral courage and societal renewal, the “spirit of America” has encompassed both aspiration and self-reflection. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, politicians and commentators have deployed it to highlight American exceptionalism, national pride, or democratic values. At a deeper level, use of “spirit of America” as a slogan, and its resonance in national discourse, remind us that America has always sought to define itself by its principles and what people make of them, not merely its institutions.
Still, whatever we might consider the “spirit of America” will critically affect institutions, and institutions in turn affect the spirit. Under Obama and Biden, federal institutions—to some extent—pushed emancipatory agendas, supporting a reckoning with America’s slave-holding past and lingering injustices that resulted from it. The well-being of people outside the gender binary made significant strides, as did the extent to which climate change was taken seriously as a global challenge. Under Trump, all these agendas are suffering, delaying much-needed progress—though these agendas are driven by underlying realities that will not change because political movements refuse to recognize them.
Under Trump, institutions are not just trying to undo progressive agendas; leadership at the highest levels is also shaping the atmosphere in ways we can describe as vindictive tolerance, a notion that builds on philosopher Herbert Marcuse’s idea of repressive tolerance. Repressive tolerance is a kind of tolerance that does not give certain political positions a real chance at succeeding in democratic politics—but keeps them around, allowing them to flourish just enough for mainstream leadership to claim that society is tolerant.
Vindictive tolerance is a version of repressive tolerance that tries to maintain overall appearances of a tolerant society—endorsing free speech, democracy, rule of law, and human rights—while actively maligning opposing positions as civil rights violations, bigotry, or conspiracies. Overall, that is, society is in good health, as far as its value commitment are concerned, were it not for these ugly figures on the opposing side that viciously seek to undermine society’s core values—and thus need to be fought vigorously to protect society. The notion of vindictive tolerance reveals a paradox in contemporary American political culture: tolerance (alongside these other values) is publicly extolled—“under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square, agree or disagree,” JD Vance said in Munich in February—yet is practically weaponized against dissenting voices.
Vindictive tolerance, like gaslighting, is not merely a theoretical concern—it is a present danger to the health of democracy and the integrity of civic life in America.
Vindictive tolerance as a characteristic of a social or political system complements another theme I have emphasized: gaslighting as a leadership style, in which opponents are accused of violating norms and values even though it is the accuser (the gaslighter) who is guilty. The prime example is Trump’s ongoing insistence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, allegedly by a cabal of Democrats, while evidence shows otherwise. (I plan on theorizing gaslighting further, and work on this notion has already been done, e.g., by moral philosopher Kate Abramson and political theorists Eric Beerbohm and Ryan Davis.)
Together, vindictive tolerance and gaslighting help explain developments in the United States in 2025, the year before its 250th anniversary. Both are profoundly troubling, obscuring reality, elevating partisanship, and suppressing critical reflection. All this happens while the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics gets fired for presenting unwelcome numbers that allegedly were “rigged”; the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency gets fired without any reason officially given but after contradicting the president’s version of what American strikes on Iran did to its nuclear program; the State Department’s human rights reports are adjusted to reflect the government’s political predilections (depicting El Salvador as a bright spot and Germany as a country in decline, and largely omitting violations against LGBTQI+ people worldwide) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is overseeing the near-total destruction of his department’s human rights and global justice policy shops and programs—while a spokesperson still claims that Rubio was “committed to human rights, every day;” and overall this government has taken extensive measures to dismantle accountability.
I think that once future generations try to make sense of the America of 2025, the notions of gaslighting as a leadership style and vindictive tolerance as a notion characterizing how this administration is trying to shape legal, social, and moral realities (and thus the spirit of America) will be indispensable. To be sure, the left is capable of vindictive tolerance as well, as some excesses in implementing a self-conscious woke agenda some years back revealed. But that is not our reality now, though. Once you look at the U. S. of 2025 through the lens of vindictive tolerance, you will see its symptoms everywhere. Indeed, Trump has made clear all along that he thinks of our democracy as a vehicle for his revenge. “Vindictive tolerance” captures that this revenge unfolds amid a reinterpretation of American values, not by officially throwing them out. This reinterpretation does not bode well for the spirit of America. We should all strive towards building coalition across the spectrum to help make sure that spirit will not be one of vindictive tolerance. A political culture shaped by it might turn against all political camps at some point.
2. A Word on Herbert Marcuse
Some readers might think that only left-leaning people can learn from Marcuse, since as a member of the Frankfurt School he was obviously an intellectual in the Marxist tradition. While this is true—and he is also remembered for his association with Angela Davis—it is worth noting that Marcuse obtained his professorial credentials under Martin Heidegger, one of the major right-wing thinkers of the 20th century. He also worked for the American government in an intelligence agency that preceded the CIA and served in Germany’s Imperial Army during World War I. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1934.
In the post-war period, he became a transatlantic intellectual, never losing his heavy German accent. He is best known for his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man, a critique of advanced industrial society. That book argues that material abundance, technological rationality, and mass culture create a population superficially free but deeply integrated into the status quo—which limits possibilities for revolutionary change. Marcuse helped generations make sense of America and its place in the world, drawing on a breadth of philosophical and political understanding.
Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man is worth revisiting anyway these days. Marcuse identified the central role of entertainment for American society and especially for American capitalism. Reading this work can help us make sense of the fact that both Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump—the two Republican presidents of the past fifty years with the biggest agenda for change—were entertainers before becoming politicians. This fact arguably speaks volumes about the transformation of the Republican Party and, more broadly, the American political landscape. Marcuse died two years before Reagan became president. But his structural analysis of American society remains a source of insight.
3. From Repressive to Vindictive Tolerance
Marcuse’s notion of repressive tolerance provides a valuable framework for understanding the paradox introduced above. In his 1965 essay Repressive Tolerance, he observed that liberal democracies tolerate a range of viewpoints indiscriminately, including those that reinforce hierarchies and social injustices. Formal tolerance, in this sense, does not guarantee fairness or freedom; it may actively perpetuate domination. By allowing reactionary views to coexist with radical critique, and by limiting the impact of racial or structural critique on political decision-making, societies neutralize transformative potential. Tolerance becomes a mechanism of containment, protecting the status quo while maintaining the appearance of pluralism. By extension, the same could be said about the values that underwrite tolerance politically—democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
In 1972, Marcuse published Counterrevolution and Revolt, written during the Nixon era with its “law and order” politics. He sought to understand why the New Left, civil rights, and antiwar movements had stalled or been rolled back—and what prospects remained for genuine social transformation. He diagnosed the U.S. political climate as one of preventive counterrevolution: a counterrevolution not responding to an actual revolution but designed to undermine revolutionary possibilities before they could emerge.
Tools of this counterrevolution included repression (state violence, policing, surveillance), co-optation (absorbing dissent through consumerism, token reforms, cultural commodification), and media manipulation (shaping narratives to make radical criticism seem “un-American”). These were structural defense mechanisms of advanced capitalism, inoculating society against deep change. Marcuse attributes a kind of systemic violence to structures of racism, poverty, and imperial war. To be clear, he cautions against endorsing revolutionary violence outright. To him, hope for change persists in oppressed groups, countercultures, intellectual work, and the aesthetic imagination.
In Trump’s America, the counterrevolution is no longer preventive. It actively seeks to undo emancipatory achievements and cement conservative orientations.
In Trump’s America, the counterrevolution is no longer preventive. It actively seeks to undo emancipatory achievements and cement conservative orientations. Repressive tolerance allows radical left-wing views to exist superficially while conservative voices dominate. Vindictive tolerance goes further: it weaponizes tolerance, maligning dissenting positions and framing them as morally objectionable or legally sanctionable. Institutions and dominant political factions preach pluralism yet actively punish those who challenge orthodoxies.
Many commentators have drawn attention to how this administration “weaponizes” governmental institutions. “Vindictive tolerance” succinctly captures the phenomenon that revenge is taken on opponents not only while traditional American values (tolerance, freedom of speech, democracy, civil or human rights, and rule of law) are maintained, but while the government takes credit for being their true and only defender. Political opponents are not just attacked for making inferior proposals. They are depicted as bigots, haters, madmen, etc.—they are the ones who are a threat to a tolerant society, a democratic society in which human rights and the rule of law prevail. In reality, it is the transformation of society into one characterized by vindictive tolerance that is the problem.
4. Examples
Let me offer a few examples of how vindictive tolerance operates. First, basically right away the Trump administration moved aggressively to fulfill his promise of retribution against a long list of individuals and organizations, from political opponents, news organizations, and former government officials to international student protesters and law firms. The administration is using a vast array of government powers to launch criminal investigations —in the name of allegedly ending the weaponization of the justice system. (Also see here, here, or here.) The administration is presenting itself as the protector of the rule of law, essential to a tolerant society, and goes after its opponents for violating its spirit or letter.
Second, numerous practices under the heading of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” have come under scrutiny for potentially violating civil rights laws. We are talking about practices ranging from preferential treatment in contexts of employment or admissions for individuals from specific underrepresented groups or designated offices at companies or universities to look after individuals from such groups, to offering trainings that theorize racial dynamics in American society. What is striking about this is that there is civil rights legislation in the U.S. only because the country has tried to overcome a history of discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability, etc. The administration is presenting itself as protector of the value of non-discrimination, also essential to a tolerant society—going after those who have acted in the spirit of the civil rights legislation.
Third, President Trump continues to insist the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. The claim has failed to have noticeable success in court. One standard reference for this is “Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.” (For a summary of Trump’s legal actions and their lack of support in courts—across the nation and regardless of which president had appointed the judges—see pp 210-213.) Drawing on baseless claims of large-scale election fraud in 2020, the administration has started to threaten retaliatory action against certain election officials, civic groups that mobilize voters, and other individuals and entities that protect elections and the rule of law. The administration is presenting itself as the defender of democracy, essential to a tolerant society—while depicting people as involved in a veritable conspiracy against democracy whose actions have sought to maintain our democracy.
Fourth, at least since Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference the administration dismisses terms like misinformation and disinformation as “Soviet-era words” designed to stifle discourse. They are dismissive of efforts elsewhere to safeguard democracies, which typically happen after painful historical experiences. This is obvious for Germany and other countries in Europe that try to learn from the catastrophic civilizational breakdown during the Nazi era. It is also the case in Brazil, which saw an attack on its democracy on January 8, 2023, parallel to what happened in DC on January 6, 2021. Brazil has been targeted with exceptionally high tariffs for alleged human rights abuses for its efforts at curtailing anti-democratic tendencies. The U.S. government presents itself as the guardian of democratic discourse while sanctioning those who defend democracies against opponents.
Fifth, the government is supporting an understanding of antisemitism that makes it all too easy to vilify as antisemitic any kind of criticism of the Israeli government. These developments have also affected universities, to a point where distinguished scholars feel no longer comfortable teaching on campus about the Israel-Palestine conflict. In this case, the Trump administration presents itself as both a defender of democratic discourse and of global Jewry—while attacking opposing voices, including those who protest in the name of human rights and on behalf of a different direction of democratic politics in Israel, as antisemites and thus as awful bigots. (Also see here and here.)
5. Gaslighting as a Complementary Notion
Gaslighting involves systematic belittlement or misrepresentation. Gaslighters accuse opponents of violating norms or values while they themselves violate them. The paradigmatic example is Trump accusing Democrats of election fraud while attempting to overturn his defeat in 2020.
Vindictive tolerance and gaslighting are intimately connected. Vindictive tolerance enforces ideological compliance institutionally; gaslighting shapes perceptions to justify and amplify that enforcement. Public debates, media narratives, and legal frameworks can frame critics as morally suspect, while excusing violations by powerful actors. Vindictive tolerance without gaslighting is blunt coercion; gaslighting gives it subtle, psychologically effective force.
But although interconnected, vindictive tolerance and gaslighting are analytically distinct. Vindictive tolerance applies to institutions or to society as a whole: it arises from the selective enforcement of moral or legal principles, using the language of tolerance (or of values such as democracy, human rights, or rule of law) as leverage. By contrast, I think of gaslighting as a leadership style, one that shapes perceptions, induces doubt, and reverses responsibility. Together, they create a dual mechanism of coercion and manipulation, complicating efforts to advocate for democratic accountability or human rights protections.
6. Implications for Human Rights
The convergence of vindictive tolerance and gaslighting undermines human rights—and once we see vindictive tolerance for what it is, this point is obvious and little needs to be said about it. Human rights frameworks rely on universal respect, due process, and protection from arbitrary power. They presuppose a baseline of epistemic trust: citizens, institutions, and officials must share minimal understanding of reality to enforce rights effectively. Vindictive tolerance penalizes dissent at a systemic level. Gaslighting as a way of exercising leadership manipulates perceptions, weakening accountability.
Laws meant to protect civil rights may be instrumentalized to suppress dissent rather than safeguard vulnerable groups. Media narratives may amplify or obscure abuses depending on political alignment. Vindictive tolerance once entrenched corrodes the normative foundations of human rights, threatening domestic and global standards. So there is much at stake for human rights here. The No Kings demonstrations in June made clear that large parts of the American public are fully aware of what is going on.
Vindictive tolerance once entrenched corrodes the normative foundations of human rights, threatening domestic and global standards.
7. Toward Remedies and Reflection
Recognizing vindictive tolerance is the first step toward addressing it. Unlike classical repression, it hides behind a veneer of moral propriety. The remedies are well-known, and they are common-sensical. It is worth listing some of them even though it is precisely because they are hard to implement in the U.S. these days that we are in our current predicament in the first place:
- Reaffirm epistemic norms: Strengthen independent, fact-based journalism, civic education, and public deliberation.
- Distinguish dissent from transgression: Protect criticism of government, policy, or ideology, even when challenging national narratives.
- Support adaptive leadership: Encourage leaders who prioritize democratic problem-solving and inclusive debate, and who focus on the adaption needed to problems that objectively come up for the country (e.g., climate change).
- Strengthen institutional checks: Reinforce accountability, transparency, and due process to prevent selective enforcement.
Such measures will bring the spirit of America back on track when it comes to outgrowing vindictive tolerance and reaffirming genuine tolerance with its underlying values of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The spirit of America understood along such lines must be embedded in institutions, practices, and social norms that resist manipulation and uphold rights.
8. Conclusion
Vindictive tolerance illuminates a defining feature of contemporary American politics: the paradoxical use of tolerance and values like democracy, human rights, and rule of law as both public virtue and private weapon. Where Marcuse identified repressive tolerance generically as neutralizing radical critique, vindictive tolerance—one type of repressive tolerance is an especially aggressive, morally performative form of control.
Combined with gaslighting as a leadership style, vindictive tolerance punishes dissent, manipulates reality, and exploits the moral and legal language of tolerance to enforce orthodoxy. The spirit of America—which does indeed historically invoke civic pride and democratic ideals—today risks being co-opted as a tool of moral surveillance. The consequences for human rights are stark: institutions, citizens, and public norms are destabilized when tolerance is wielded vindictively and perception is shaped by manipulation rather than evidence.
But this is where we are. Vindictive tolerance, like gaslighting, is not merely a theoretical concern—it is a present danger to the health of democracy and the integrity of civic life in America. Moving beyond vindictive tolerance is essential for American democracy to have a future and for human rights to have a future in America. Moreover, I agree with conservative commentator Ross Douthat that the U.S. is the location where the global future of these values is currently sorted out. That is not because the rest of the world, especially European countries, are not also powerful players in this domain. Instead, that is so because these values will not have a bright future anywhere if America is in the opposing camp. So it is a matter of global urgency that the U.S. do not follow this path into vindictive tolerance much further. That would not only damage the spirit of America referenced on my license plate but would be a global calamity.
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