{"id":1346582,"date":"2026-01-20T10:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T08:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/trumps-nobel-prize-how-a-political-joke-became-reality\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T05:12:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T03:12:06","slug":"trumps-nobel-prize-how-a-political-joke-became-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/trumps-nobel-prize-how-a-political-joke-became-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"From Meme to Medal: The Absurd Path to Trump\u2019s Nobel Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Source: Author&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/portnikov\/posts\/pfbid02C3M1N2dsB9YN4dPKS4pj2pmKrggYzENEcQpVy22hhFQYeggK7XzYmQkJUGaxFqyLl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Facebook<\/a> page<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote data-start=\"1141\" data-end=\"1349\">\n<p data-start=\"1143\" data-end=\"1349\"><strong>For years, the idea of Donald Trump and the Nobel Peace Prize belonged to the realm of political mockery. Now, a photograph circulating across global media suggests that the mockery may have been premature.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p data-start=\"1351\" data-end=\"1392\">\n<p>A few weeks ago, amid Trump\u2019s constant references to the Nobel Prize, one American commentator joked that the award-hungry president might \u201cconfiscate\u201d the medal of former US President Theodore Roosevelt and display it in his office. But Trump apparently needed Machado\u2019s medal instead\u2014she received it in the very year the President of the United States himself laid claim to the prize. Trump may<em data-start=\"114\" data-end=\"168\"> now attempt\u00a0<\/em>to collect the awards of all subsequent Nobel Peace Prize laureates\u2014at least over the next three years.<\/p>\n<p>But in reality, there is nothing funny about it at all: the constant craving for awards, the readiness to accept fictitious honours, the urge to place one\u2019s name on everything possible, and the open resentment toward decisions made by independent institutions. Americans may struggle to recognize what is unfolding, having never encountered such a concentration of symbolic power of a comparable system. Those who have endured the Soviet system, however, know this pattern well: the glitter of medals is often a reliable sign of the slow degradation of power.<\/p>\n\t\t<aside class=\"shortcode-also\" data-title=\"Read also\" >\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/they-didnt-give-me-the-nobel-prize-so-i-wont-just-think-about-peace-trump-wrote-a-letter-to-the-prime-minister-of-norway-regarding-greenland\/\">&#8220;They didn&#8217;t give me the Nobel Prize, so I won&#8217;t just think about peace&#8221;: Trump wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Norway regarding Greenland<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\n<p>I belong to a generation that still remembers the cascade of awards bestowed on Leonid Brezhnev\u2014four-time Hero of the Soviet Union, Hero of Socialist Labour, and repeatedly declared a \u201chero\u201d of nearly every country subordinate to the Kremlin. He was also a laureate of the Lenin Prize for Literature. And, of course, there is the International Lenin Prize \u201cFor Strengthening Peace among Peoples\u201d\u2014an award that might well appeal to Trump, as it was conceived as a Soviet counterpart to the Nobel Peace Prize, devised under Stalin (and, in its early years, bearing his name).<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"125\" data-end=\"603\">For those who lived through the Brezhnev era, his obsession with awards was widely interpreted as evidence of systemic deterioration\u2014not only of the General Secretary himself, but of the system as a whole, a defining symbol of gerontocracy. The paradox, however, is that Brezhnev\u2019s predecessor, Nikita Khrushchev, was himself a three-time Hero of Socialist Labour and a Hero of the Soviet Union. He, too, was a laureate of the International Lenin Prize \u201cFor Strengthening Peace among Peoples.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"610\" data-end=\"862\">There was no literary prize in Khrushchev\u2019s case. Instead, paradoxically enough, there was the Shevchenko Prize\u2014one he never had the chance to receive, having been removed from office by his comrades shortly after the Ukrainian honour was instituted.<br \/>\nKhrushchev\u2019s obsession with awards during the final period of his turbulent rule was also seen as a sign of degradation\u2014and while other leaders eagerly played up the First Secretary\u2019s narcissism, they were simultaneously plotting how to remove him. Brezhnev, in the first years after taking power, thought precisely about power, not awards. The general secretary\u2019s desire to receive one hero star after another really showed that the regime was beginning to degenerate.<\/p>\n\t\t<aside class=\"shortcode-also\" data-title=\"Read also\" data-right>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/bloody-massacre-in-iran-why-world-leaders-ignored-the-protests\/\">Bloody massacre in Iran: why world leaders ignored the protests<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\n<p>And since then, my passion for rattles has become for me an indicator of what a politician wants\u2014power or fame. Brezhnev&#8217;s successor, Yuri Andropov, who fought for a long time for the opportunity to become General Secretary and eventually laid the foundations of the very regime that is now attacking Ukraine, died &#8220;only&#8221; a hero of socialist labour. But after him, not long after, there was Konstantin Chernenko, a gray, inexpressive bureaucrat who managed to award himself a third star of the hero\u2014and died.<\/p>\n<p>Trump, they might argue, wants both power and fame at the same time\u2014so why compare him here? Yet, a ruler obsessed with superficial rewards cannot help but lose relevance because he thinks not only about how to become stronger but also about how to please his supporters. A person who seeks orders and medals inevitably loses out in politics to someone focused on strengthening their capabilities and on how they will be remembered in encyclopedias and memoirs. And, of course, the desire to be liked inevitably shapes personnel decisions. You surround yourself with sycophants and flatterers and, in the process, lose touch with reality.<\/p>\n<p>And, probably, this is accurately what we are observing in the office, which will now be decorated with someone else&#8217;s Nobel medal.<\/p>\n<p>Also, follow <strong>\u201cPryamyi\u201d<\/strong> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/prm_ua\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Twitter<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/+rtV4dxYu2_cyNjVi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Telegram<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>\u2022 Materials published in the \u201cOPINIONS\u201d section reflect the opinion of the author of the publication, who bears full responsibility for the accuracy of the information.<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>\u2022 The editorial staff of prm.ua may not share the opinions expressed in the author&#8217;s material.<\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>\u2022 The owner of the webpage in the \u201cOPINIONS\u201d section is the author of the publication.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Author&#8217;s Facebook page For years, the idea of Donald Trump and the Nobel Peace Prize belonged to the realm of political mockery. Now, a photograph circulating across global media suggests that the mockery may have been premature. A few weeks ago, amid Trump\u2019s constant references to the Nobel Prize, one American commentator joked that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":1346557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76893],"class_list":["post-1346582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1346582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1347012,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346582\/revisions\/1347012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1346557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1346582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1346582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}