After weeks of Trump administration stone-walling regarding the release of the infamous “Epstein files,” including an in-opportune release of a video from the night the financier and convicted sex offender supposedly committed suicide in a Manhattan prison which raised more questions than answers, the podcast host and media personality Joe Rogan asked of the White House “do you think we’re babies? What is this?” Rogan, who has 14.5 million Spotify followers and 16.4 million YouTube followers, endorsed the current president the night before the election, which whether that provided decisive on November 5th signaled the host’s own political transformation evocative of the way in which actively supporting Trump has been professionally advantageous to many celebrities and politicians. Rogan wasn’t the only figure who was disturbed by the suspicious behavior regarding release of the Epstein files, though it should be strange that any of them were surprised.

The MAGA movement, whose adherents have often made fevered, conspiratorial speculation about transnational child trafficking rings which were apparently going to be brought to justice by an adjudicated rapist, has normally looked the other way when it comes to Trump’s indiscretions, but for at least a few weeks the Epstein denials gained an unusual degree of traction among his otherwise steadfast supporters. Pundit Tucker Carlson, social media influencer Tim Pool, and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec have all been shocked, positively shocked, over the president’s incriminating performance. Shocked that a man who in 2002 said of Epstein to New York Magazine that “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” who was described by Epstein in 2010 as his “closest friend,” and who can be seen on video dancing next to each other at a 1992 Mar-a-Lago party, may be implicated in the mountain of evidence against the dead financier. So, when Rogan asks if Trump thinks his supporters are babies, the answer is that he thinks that his supporters are either easily led and corruptible – and he is right.  

To exchange your credibility and reputation, to subvert your deeply stated values, not just because of the fleeting possibility of some gain, but also despite how dangerous Trump is and how irrational such an exchange may prove being, is the consummate deal with Satan. “[T]here are few archetypal scripts in our culture as essential as the legend of a man selling his soul to the Devil,” I argue in my book Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain. What is the story of the Trump era other than one long litany of such infernal contracts? Writing my book during the interregnum between Trump administrations, I had ample opportunity to think about the similarities between that ancient legend and our current political moment. Though the word “Trump” appears nowhere in my book (the phrase “pussy grabber” does, however), the then-former and now-current president was obviously on my mind, as he unfortunately must be for all of us.

Considering not just the rising threat of authoritarianism around the world, but also issues like climate change and artificial intelligence, I quipped that our era may best be understood as the “Faustocene,” because “never have the immoral negotiations and intransigent capitulations of our broken society been clearer, never has the light of our illusions and the sound of our spectacles been more entertaining even as the temperatures rise and as the shoreline disappears.” Not everyone agreed with me. I’m not so dishonest that I’ll claim to not reading reviews or Goodreads comments, but I’m also not shameless enough to quote and argue with them, though I’ll anecdotally note that one of the biggest hurdles many seemed to have with Devil’s Contract was the argument that ours is a particularly Faustian era. Personally, I thought it was the least controversial of claims that I could have made. One need only look at last decade of American political history.

Faustian bargains are a defining feature of the Trump era, how any number of former foes and critics – Senator Mitch McConnell, Governor Nikki Halley, Governor Ron DeSantis, Secretary Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz, Representative Lindsey Graham – end up genuflecting in exchange for power or influence. Even J.D. Vance, who once compared Trump to Hitler, is now his Vice President. And Vance accepted that Vice Presidency even after knowing that Trump effectively tried to have the previous occupant of that office killed during the January 6th insurrection. No doubt an argument could be made that politicians are often unprincipled and unscrupulous, that a history of politics is of self-serving cynicism, and you get no argument from me in that regard. Where the Faustian tenor of the Trump era is different is in how irrational those bargains are, for by definition selling your soul to the Devil is an irrational act. The art of Donald Trump’s deal is to back out of any deal, to renege on contracts, to refuse payouts, and to betray whoever signed on the dotted line if it benefits the president to do so (as it always does). Again, none of this is surprising, all of it has been common knowledge since the earliest years of his New York City real estate empire, and yet people don’t just do business with Trump, they chomp at the bit to do so. One need only look at the example of Vance – an apparently intelligent and well spoken, if ambitious, man. Like all of us reading, he’s fully aware of Trump’s treatment of former Vice President Mike Pence, but like Faust, Vance somehow thinks he’ll be different, that he’ll be the one to beat the Devil.  

That’s the irrationalism of the Faustian bargain, what differentiates it from standard Machiavellian maneuvering or jaded realpolitik. It’s helpful to remember the literal particulars of the Faust legend, in all its varied permutations from Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe’s sixteenth-century play, the German poet Johann Goethe’s nineteenth-century closet drama, and the hundreds of versions across legend, music, literature, and art. When the titular wizard of the myth sells his soul to the Devil, he’s not merely entering into a negotiation with an unsavory character, some unethical merchant. Such a contract might make estimable rational sense (immoral though it may be) in some circumstances and could be the mutual benefit of both parties. Crime, after all, is as old as civilization. What makes the Faustian bargain different is that it’s not just anything which is being traded, but it’s your eternal soul, and it’s not just to anyone, but to Satan. The stakes are thus infinite. And yet Faust still pricks his finger and signs on the contract with his own blood. A man who knows the Devil to be real and Hell to be an actual location nonetheless thinks he can get one over on Satan. That’s the irrationalism of the Faustian bargain, and it’s that attitude that infects politics today.   

A sobering experience in perusing the posts on the subreddit with the pithy name “LeopardsAteMyFace” (as in “I never thought that the leopard would eat MY face”). There posters comment on stories, some might say uncharitably, in which Trump supporters are personally affected by his policies. Recent stories on the day that I’m writing include Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee, a supporter of Trump’s cutting Medicaid subsidies nationally, being angry that those same policies will see a rate hike of 54% in her state; a woman who posts that her Trump-voting father can no longer afford his insulin due to the president’s policies; and Trump-supporting country musician Carrie Underwood unable to find workers for her farm due to recent deportations. For sure there can be something cruel about the LeopardsAteMyFace trope, a type of ugly Schadenfreude that shouldn’t be countenanced in a healthy democracy, which ours of course isn’t. And for sure there are differences of who is deserving of such opprobrium; it’s easier to chastise Underwood than an elderly man who can’t afford insulin anymore, to be pleased that Huckabee is suffering but not the average person in her state. But beyond the personal ethics of whether somebody gets a dark satisfaction from such stories, they do well to demonstrate a thorough line in the Faustian politics of today. A common refrain in articles about Trump’s supposed lagging support among his die-hards is that “This isn’t what I voted for,” but it’s exactly what they voted for. Like Rogan being surprised that Epstein’s closest friend is now covering something up, voters can’t be shocked that the most draconian policies in a document like Project 2025 are now seeing fruition. Many, no doubt, just didn’t think it would affect them, which is very different.

There is arguably a certain American caste to all of this, those folk tales about the Devil being easily beat, for after all, Johnny in “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” easily wins his gold violin. American Faustian fantasies often imagine some rugged individualist who can boot-strap his way out of an infernal contract. Beyond that, however, infernal contracts are what define authoritarian politics, which obviously goes far beyond the United States. In Devil’s Contract I argue that authoritarianism, in particular fascism, is the most Faustian form of politics because it asks you to trade democratic values for perceived strength and identity, but ultimately it leads to ruin for everyone, even supporters. Internet denizens might be familiar with an adage often called Wilhoit’s Law which argues that such politics are defined by how there “must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but not does not protect.” What the supporter of fascist politics doesn’t understand is how quickly anyone can move from the in-group to the out-group (after all, that’s exactly what the Martin Niemöller “First They Came” poem is about). Fascism eventually consumes itself since it defines itself entirely through its perceived enemies (and sooner or later you run out). That’s why fascism, in its nihilism, is by definition Faustian.

As Trump further consolidates his power, disregarding Constitutional strictures and militarizing American cities, using the authority of the presidency to punish opponents and the power of the purse strings to do the same, what benefit does reading any of this as “Faustian” have for us? Well, for those who aren’t supporters of Trump – indeed who might despise him – there is a warning about obeying. Institutions from Columbia University to Paramount Pictures have submitted to the president under the mistaken guise that the Devil might just want only a very small part of your soul. This is a negotiation that says you’re trading your soul for safety rather than for power, but the ultimate destination is still the same. Whether the reasons for signing that contract are understandable or not, cynical or not, the result is still damnation. No soul is too small to not be lost for an eternity. It’s important to interpret this moment as Faustian because it not only underscores the dangers, but it helps to focus a response, to not be tricked by the Devil. After all, if there is one inviolate truth that I discovered in the writing of my book, it’s that the worst at actually recognizing the Devil is ironically Faust, because he’s the only one foolish enough to believe that he can beat him on his own terms.

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Ed Simon is the editor of Belt Magazine and a contributing editor to The Montreal Review. His latest book is The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues: A Visual History, published this month by Cernunnos/Abrams.

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