This is a measure of the way in which the United States has become that rarely became in its history, a president is the subject of so many adolations among his supporters and an intense aversion among his adversaries.
The divisions were not caused by Trump; They were already there, just like many other problems he has exploited to get to power.
There is too much emphasis on the character and the character of Trump. But he is much more than his character. The reality is that Trump is not a unique phenomenon. As a phenomenon, it is at the center of a complex set of problems that have developed in the United States and the world in recent decades.
They include a decrease in the quality of democracy in advanced democracies, in particular in America, and the excesses of capitalism and globalization that had led to the rise of a globalist elite which cared more about their own wealth than economic and social justice, or even national interest.
Democracy had become dominated by an impious alliance between capitalism led by the globalists, money, the partisan media, politics, lobbies and special interests. It is a well -maintained secret that, apart from AIPAC, the most successful lobby in the US Congress is the banking lobby. The magnitude of its impact was reflected in the horrible scale of the 2008 financial crisis.
The crisis was attributed to the banking deregulation adopted by the US Congress during the Clinton years who helped bankers to make billions to the detriment of small owners who have received loans to which they are not eligible, leading to massive seizures.
Democracy had become the quest for the continuation of political power. This compromised democracy helped politicians to be elected without doing many public services. Instead of listening to people and hearing about their grievances, leadership was busy fighting wars abroad. The wars, invited by electoral and economic and class interests of the elite, and the influence of the military-industrial complex, cost billions of dollars to provoke not only huge war victims, but also thousands of disabled war veterans who have reached an intense revulsion against the elite.
By extension, anti-elite feeling has eroded confidence in government, institutions and educated class and knowledge, including that of medical sciences. This partly explained the anti-vaccine movement.
People have estimated that politicians and politics had failed them, a belief that Trump has exploited by offering himself as an alternative. This improved his image of non-political and, by extension, sank Hillary who was successfully demonized by his supporters as part of the elite-based system.
Trump exploited not only the anti-elite feeling, but also public insecurity, caused by the threat of terrorism which began with September 11, as well as with the social dissatisfaction led by globalization and the inequalities of income affecting the lower classes. Not to mention their fear of potential instability and job losses of the deluge of refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, in particular because of the practically open borders of the South.
There was also another factor. Class conscience had reached the western coasts – first in Europe, then in the United States where white and without instruction among the lower classes felt victims and excluded in the hands of the forces, they did not understand them, encouraging them to look for scapegoats. This caused xenophobia, in particular Muslim phobia, encouraging a feeling of whites only at home and in America first abroad.
And then there was the culture shock of traditional American values provoked by the Democrats with their passage to the left on social issues such as abortion, gender equality and LGBTQ, and their discourse on the control of firearms.
A major contributor to foment all this negativity in a large part of America was the new revolutionary media that has marketed the dissemination of information. These media began decades ago with 24/7 cable television, but have since developed exponentially with the arrival of the Internet and social media gradually knowing the credibility of information.
Social media has personalized the dissemination of information, further degrading its authenticity. You could say anything on social networks, and with most people, it would come as truth or a form. In addition to that, it would also spread like forest fires. The credibility of the information has become not so much on the evidence based on the facts, but on the influence, the call or the emotional taking of the source of the information – whether it is a person, a group or a worship.
The consumer media, in particular printed, tried to play a positive – as limited – role – as a source of new trust despite its commercial interests. However, his voice was increasingly overshadowed by the electronic media motivated by assessments, in particular highly politicized points of sale and propagandists as Fox News.
Fox Discovered that damaged democracy, in which the media itself had been accomplices of one point, offered an excellent opportunity. The grievances and the exclusions he had created were grey for the media. Fox Developed the News Network prototype that played on the anxieties, fears, grievances and people’s insecurities. As the company became polarized, the grievances multiply.
With a tenuous link with the truth and a huge emotional attraction, Fox News were a perfect network for political propaganda and demagogyry. Trump and Fox came to have a symbiotic relationship. Trump would not have received a 24/7 platform by respectable consumer media, a platform he did not need anyway, first because of Twitter (now x) and now Truth Social.
Trump could hold his base in emotional leaping by telling them things that were clearly false and that the consumer media would have neither believed nor allowed to be disseminated. The reality is that if it had not been Fox News And Trump social media would never have been elected. Whether as a businessman or a politician, Trump’s strength was to control the message and keep the public. And social media provided this.
It is not only economic anxieties – driven by global and interior forces – or threats of security of terrorism that would have been linked to the Muslim world that Trump managed to exploit. He also exploited the cultural alienation of Americans, nostalgia for an idealized white identity and a desire for a strong man. These problems preceded Trump; He did not create them. Instead, they provided him with `Dragons to kill ” in his quest for power – he finally exercised for his own benefit and that of other billionaires.
The super rich have rallied behind Trump, united by their passion shared for the small government – which is essentially reflected in minimum regulations, low taxes and low law. Their ultimate objective is freedom without hindrance to accumulate wealth. The billionaires see Trump as the spearhead of an assault against institutions, surveillance agencies and the police.
While Trump’s main reason is to erode responsibility and the rule of law to solidify its authoritarian grip, other billionaires also benefit from it, gaining freedom to raise wealth and to engage in reprehensible acts without fear of government surveillance. This marks the return of the golden age of America.
Trump has a solid base of half of the United States, which he captivated in exchange for his aid to fight against their economic, cultural, ethnic and security grievances. They want him to fight the great government, the Democrats, “the radical left”, the so-called “radical Islam”, the refugees, the immigrants and the foreign powers that benefit from the United States.
This is why Trump seems to be on a War War every day, operating on so many fronts. If he fails to repair the economy, his base will always support him for a number of other reasons.
Essentially, there is a method in what Trump does. As a marketing genius and genius, he will continue to play the media and control the message to never seem to have failed. It will not be true.
But for its base, all that Trump says is true by definition. How does that affect the future of America? Too early to say, but the signs are not good.
Warning: The points of view expressed in this play are the own writers and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of PK Press Club.TV.
The writer, a former ambassador, is a auxiliary professor at the University of Georgetown and principal researcher visiting the National University of Singapore.
Originally published in the news
