Democracy will not be Trumped but 70 million???
It’s no surprise that a liar, a cheat, a fraud, a rapist, a racist and a bombastic blowhard is a sore loser. A multiple bankrupt and a moral bankrupt can’t be expected to behave with fairness and decency. Trump has unashamedly shown himself to be a venal, thin-skinned, selfish, predatory narcissist. He is a man without shame. How can a pussy-grabbing, tax-dodging, dog-whistling, draft-dodging man understand fairness and decency? That’s not his MO.
Not only does he represent the very worst of human values, he has paraded his stupidity with enervating regularity. Mars is part of the moon? Ingesting bleach will cure Covid? He even asked about buying Greenland. When imbecility is mixed with amorality, the results are toxic: locking children in cages, pouring poison into rivers, calling dead soldiers “losers”, calling white supremacists “decent people”, paying off porn stars, spewing carbon into the skies, befriending tyrants and rejecting democrats, “killing” 250,000 Americans due to his spectacular mismanagement of the “hoax China virus”!
The more urgent question is this: how can 70 million people vote for him? How can almost half of America vote for such a man? When a man who wears his nastiness as a badge of honour is supported by half the population of the most powerful democracy in the world, there are questions to ask. When a man knowingly uses a fascist slogan (“America First”) from the thirties as his campaign slogan to propel him to the Whitehouse, we should take note.
Yes, we know that in 2016, equally amoral men bombarded black voters with ads discouraging them from voting. We know that this year, polling stations have been closed and minorities have been forced to queue for hours. Voter suppression in the most powerful democracy in the world. We also know that Trump appeals to disenfranchised, poor, uneducated “rednecks” and that the liberal elite in governments and the media have ignored them for so long, treated them as laughables or “deplorables”- even with growing Trumptime inequalities, Trump clearly has massive support from vast swathes of the American population. But these facts are well known and well discussed and don’t explain the seventy million votes that Trump gained this time.
Something other than Covid-19 has spread like a virus across the United States (and the world). What does Trump represent? What is his appeal? To an outsider, he is like the anti-Christ in a dystopian horror film. But American Christians love him. What is it in American culture that makes him appeal in a way that Europeans (Farage and Johnson apart) simply cannot understand?
Firstly, the United States was born on the myth of freedom, individualism and rebellion: the pilgrim fathers, the wild west, the Alamo. And it was built on the idea of opportunity. A toxic mix. In the twenty first century, these foundational ideas have morphed into the “gods” of competition, consumerism and showmanship and greed. Trump embodies these values, old and new. He appears to be (despite a multi-millionaire father) the embodiment of the American Dream. That myth has become the American nightmare: a culture of fear, division, insecurity and desire. A culture that daren’t look at itself for fear of seeing something ugly, shallow, sordid and destructive. The anti-Christ? (Though there are many worse contenders.)
How can it be that the socialism is seen as evil when the Christ that they claim to worship demonstrated care, compassion and love of a decidedly socialist hue? Their Christ is a white American, more bothered by sexual sin and swearing, than grinding economic “sin” and relentless poverty. The Christ in the New Testament said that it was impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven- camels, after all, can’t get through the eyes of needles.
How can a country see universal healthcare or education as an evil? How can they see their crazy, murderous gun laws as Christian or moral? Unless, of course, they are terrified of community and care, fearful of others and petrified of looking at themselves. Those values are fragmenting and ,under Trump, civic values have disintegrated more in four years than seemed possible.
We tell ourselves stories. And the United States’ stories have been as persuasive and divisive as those of ISIS. Our stories are dangerous. The “United” States’ stories have divided them (into Confederates and Unionists?). It seems to me time to step back from stories and reflect. To look squarely at what they, and we, have become.
But, ultimately, stories of hope can bring some unity amidst individualism; the stories of Carter, Clinton, Gore and Obama are stories of idealism. Biden’s story didn’t win him the election; Trump’s did. I hope that President Biden’s vision can bring hope, healing and unity and (even if hamstrung by Congress) become compelling. He is not an individualist; he may be a softly spoken idealist. Democrats believe in, err, democracy; they believe in people. Republicans under Trump seem only to believe in power without principle.
I have been treated with immense love and care in the United States and I have been mugged, robbed and cheated also. I prefer to remember the love. Congratulations, Democrats. As Republican support leaches away from Trump and a measured, conciliatory man takes over, we can breathe again, maybe we can dare to hope. Though the history of the USA is littered with illegal invasions and coups, maybe he can Make America Great Again. At least we can hope…