There are images that do not fade. They imprint themselves on the retina of History not by their beauty, but by the symbolic violence they radiate. The photograph of Donald Trump, enthroned in the Oval Office, wearing a predatory smile, brandishing the Nobel Peace Prize of activist Maria Corina Machado like a hunter exhibiting a trophy, belongs to this category.
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by François de Vries — Brussels, January 19, 2026
It is the image of an era that has lost its sense of the sacred. The official White House caption will speak of a tribute. The raw truth jumps out: it is predation. The smile is that of the wolf who has just played with the lamb before devouring it; the gaze, that of a bottomless vanity. A few days earlier, with that legendary “modesty” that now borders on clinical pathology, the 47th President of the United States affirmed before the world’s cameras that he “was the only, the unique human being deserving of this distinction.”
That the legitimate recipient stands beside him, forced into the strained rictus of a hostage, is of no importance to him. For Trump, reality is merely an option, others are merely extras, and decency is an obsolete shackle.
But to understand the gravity of this gesture, one must not look to the future, but turn to the past. One must dare to summon ghosts. For in the long and prestigious history of the Nobel Prize, there is only one documented precedent of a laureate using his medal to seal a pact with the devil. It was not about peace, but literature. And the man was not a New York real estate developer, but a giant of Norwegian letters: Knut Hamsun.
The Precedent of Dishonor: Hamsun and Goebbels
We are in 1943. Europe is in flames. Knut Hamsun, author of Hunger and Growth of the Soil, crowned by the Nobel in 1920, is in the twilight of his life. But the old man has sunk. Blinded by his hatred of British imperialism and fascinated by the Germanic myth, he embraced the Nazi cause with the fervor of a convert.
In June 1943, Hamsun committed the irreparable. He decided to offer his gold medal, the highest literary distinction in the world, to Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich. In a letter that still chills the blood of historians, he wrote: “I have received this Nobel medal. It is useless to me. I know no one as idealistic as you, Monsieur Reichsminister (…) I beg you to take the medal.”
Hamsun would later travel to the Berghof to shake Adolf Hitler’s hand. Until the end, in a hallucinatory obituary published after the Führer’s death, he would describe him as a “warrior for mankind.” Hamsun ended his life in disgrace, tried, ruined, his literary genius forever stained by this medal offered to the executioner.
The Tragedy and the Farce
Why compare Knut Hamsun and Donald Trump today? Because History, as Marx said, tends to repeat itself: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.
Hamsun’s gesture was an absolute tragedy. It was the moral suicide of an intellectual, an act of totalitarian ideological submission, but dictated by conviction (abject as it was). Hamsun gave his own medal. He sacrificed his honor on the altar of his misguided beliefs.
Trump’s gesture is a grotesque farce. He gives nothing; he takes. He sacrifices nothing; he appropriates. He serves no ideology—not even fascism—he serves only himself. By posing with Machado’s medal, he does not celebrate the Venezuelan dissident’s courage in the face of dictatorship; he steals her aura. He reduces the symbol of world peace to a reality TV prop, a shiny trinket he believes belongs to him by divine right, simply because he is Donald Trump.
Where Hamsun was terrifying in his fanaticism, Trump is terrifying in his emptiness. The Norwegian writer sold his soul to the devil; the American president seems to have no soul to sell, only an ego to feed.
Yes, our era has lost all sense of the sacred! While Knut Hamsun’s gesture belonged to the realm of classical moral tragedy, our times confront us with a different kind of decay: that of kitsch and artifice. Where dishonor once played out in the secrecy of official salons, it now displays itself unfiltered on our screens, propelled by algorithms.
The Apotheosis of Digital Narcissism
Donald Trump himself encourages this drift on his network, the ironically named “Truth Social.” Far from any truth, he promotes the publication of AI-generated content, transforming politics into a collective hallucination. We have seen him share clips turning a devastated Gaza into a luxury resort, or staging himself at the controls of fighter jets in grotesque scenarios. But the peak was reached with the image before us today.
This viral image, the fruit of artificial generation, embodies the twilight of decency. It shows a Christ-like Trump helping Jesus carry His cross. For his supporters, it is a messianic vision of a man “bearing the burden.”
For the critical observer, it is the height of indecency: the politician no longer just governs, he invites himself into the sacred through pure marketing. It is no longer faith, it is “storytelling.”
A chilling illustration of a world where historical truth and moral restraint fade before the power of the image.
AI-generated image circulated on social media
The Diplomacy of Moral Chaos
This episode could be just an anecdote, one more in this term of chaos we chronicle here. But it is revealing of the world’s collapse. The “Trump method,” this diplomacy of chaos we denounce, is not content with breaking alliances or launching trade wars. It attacks symbols, benchmarks, the distinction between true and false, the noble and the vulgar.
By forcing Maria Corina Machado into this masquerade, Trump sends a message to dictators around the world, the very ones who oppress peoples: “Look, your opponents are my toys. Their awards are my trinkets. Nothing has value, except my will.” It is a form of joyful nihilism, a dance on the ruins of international diplomacy.
The parallel with 1943 is here to remind us of an essential lesson: talent, power, or success do not protect against abjection. Hamsun was a great writer; he became a small man by offering his medal to Goebbels. Trump is the most powerful man in the world; he becomes minuscule by wanting to steal another’s.
History Always Judges
At the heart of this comparison remains an ironic glimmer of hope.
Hamsun’s medal, offered to Goebbels, was eventually found in the rubble of the Propaganda Ministry, then returned to Sweden before disappearing into the meanders of museums. It became a cursed object, the cold witness of an intellectual betrayal.
The photo of Trump with Machado’s Nobel will suffer the same fate. It will not remain as proof of his greatness, but as Exhibit A of his pettiness. In twenty, fifty, or a hundred years, history books will show this snapshot to explain to future generations how America, once the beacon of freedom, could for a time lose its way in the cult of a man who, not content with owning the tallest towers, wanted to own the glory of others too.
Knut Hamsun ended his days deaf and hated, wandering in his garden, murmuring justifications no one listened to. Donald Trump continues to parade under the gold of the White House. But History has time. It forgets neither the medals offered to monsters nor those stolen from heroes. And its verdict is final: dignity cannot be bought, it cannot be stolen, and it always outlives tyrants, be they tragic or grotesque.
François de Vries
[01] « The Triumph of Imposture: Donald Trump and the Diplomacy of Chaos » — (2026-0116)
[02] When Carl von Ossietzky received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935, Hamsun openly criticized the decision and justified the creation of concentration camps. Source: Wikipedia.
See also:
- « Le Crépuscule de la décence : De la médaille de Hamsun au sourire de Trump » — (2026-0119)
- « The Triumph of Imposture: Donald Trump and the Diplomacy of Chaos » — (2026-0116)
- « The Twilight of Decency – From Hamsun’s Medal to Trump’s Smile » — (2026-0119)
- « Die Dämmerung des Anstands – Von Hamsuns Medaille zu Trumps Lächeln » — (2026-0119)
Decryption: The Mirror of Shame
Welcome to this new episode. There are images that mark History not by their greatness, but by their absolute indecency. The image of Donald Trump appropriating Maria Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize is one of them.
To understand the unheard-of violence of this gesture, we must not look at current events, but dare to summon the ghosts of 1943, when the writer Knut Hamsun offered his own medal to Joseph Goebbels. Today, we are going to hold up a mirror between the narcissistic vanity of the American President and the tragic fanaticism of the Norwegian Nobel laureate.
This vertiginous parallel reveals a chilling truth: we are no longer facing a simple presidential whim, but a true moral pathology. Yet, let us never forget the lesson of History: Hamsun ended his life in disgrace. Dignity cannot be stolen, and in the face of this triumphant imposture, rejection grows every day. It is in this surge of lucidity that our hope lies.
