Bu Vishwamithra –

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” ~ Voltaire

Donald Trump is not a compassionate individual. He does not display any friendliness towards his political adversaries. On the contrary, his very disposition exhibits a stark aversion to decency, civility and gentility. We might not know where his relentless journey to the fulfillment of his narcissistic ends would end. But doing nothing in the face of his warped passage is not an option. That is, if we’re still interested in sustaining our present system of governance, an open-market economy and a civil conduct in our social intercourse.

Trump

Ever since he assumed the gauges of executive power, with a loyal set of cohorts, he has been engaging in a radical change of course, to an imperious-style; that is a forceful and commanding approach where leaders exercise absolute control, expect strict obedience, and often suppress dissenting opinions; they prioritize their own vision and authority, and make their fundamental mode of governance. This happens behind the curtain most times, but in Trump’s case, it is occurring before our very eyes. His obedient cohorts, both in the Cabinet and Congress, have chosen to play the game according to the undeclared rules of Donald Trump. The cruel irony is that Trump likes to do it, he likes to hear it being executed and he is overjoyed in seeing it through the social media, mainstream television and via his loyal serfs’ mouthpieces. It certainly is not in defense of the democratic values which we cherish so dearly.

Over the last two hundred and fifty years, ever since the Declaration of Independence, Americans have been taking their independence, freedom of expression and assembly and all the rights that have been affirmed in the Bill of Rights in the first ten amendments of the Constitution, as a matter of inalienable right and privilege. America has gone to war for the ostensible reasons of defending and protecting the freedoms and liberty of the the peoples of other nations. Broadly assuming the character of the global policeman, she had engaged her military forces in South East Asia, Latin America and even in the Western and Eastern Europe. Her soldiers have stamped their boots on ground, sacrificed their precious lives and spent incalculable dollars within the shores of these so-named third world countries in order to safeguard and protect the rights and privileges enshrined in her constitution.

While there may be many negatives that could be accrued to this neocolonialist approach to global affairs, especially the economics-laden invasion into the poor countries in the world which are being governed by dictators and draconian narcissistic leaders, the positive side dwells in the checking and balancing the more autocratic and devastatingly repressive regimes of the then Soviet Union and Mao’s China.

But that world has changed. The cold war is over and the Soviet Union is hardly a subject that is recognized by the present generation of Russians or East Europeans. China has traveled a long way away from Mao’s communism and is indeed a formidable challenge to America. Yet the economic dominance of the USA has not gone anywhere but up and wide. Profit as the single-most motivator in creating more wealth and brand new vistas for humankind, has surpassed all ideological and theoretical arguments of the past. The Smartphone and Smart Television have overtaken the print medium of mass communication and political persuasion. Gone are the days of posters and leaflets. The pressure of time imposed on daily chores of a working mom or dad has taken toll of more laid-back fiestas and relaxed reading. America has recognized this human decadence and is oiling the wheels that turn the  very process to a non-stop spinning.

That is the cruel context within which Donald Trump was elected to power in 2024, November 5. Those who voted him to that powerful seat, did recognize the validity of American Exceptionalism, but held it by the wrong end. American Exceptionalism, among others, resided in the very manner in which she recognized the validity and legitimacy of the vast numbers of immigrants who streamed into New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities in America. Some of these immigrants were legitimate entrants into a dreamland, away from their motherland which was real hell on earth where the food on the table occurred only once in two weeks. They fled from a country which did not recognize the right to free speech and freedom of assembly. America provided those privileges to them.

However, some of these immigrants came without a valid visa; they sought a greener pasture because the land they were living in was parched and dry, both literally and metaphorically. They were economically down and physically and educationally much to be desired. But to admit them or send them back was a decision that was arrived at after a due process was given to each immigrant, in accordance with the law of the USA. When the so-called guardian of the rule of law is shying away from that very gospel of reasonableness and virtue of goodness, which has been the hallmark of America, which Ronald Reagan described as the ‘Beacon of Light’, where can the new entrants go?

Donald Trump was elected into power because of two main contexts that were masterfully created by the Trump team: Immigration and Inflation. These two macro issues created a broad context within which a set of minor issues could be generated, especially for single issue-voters to make up their minds as to whom to vote for. Those single issues, among others, were gun rights, abortion rights, LGBTQ etc. The anger and distress that was a direct byproduct of the Trump campaign’s raising of macro issues to the main thrust was fertile ground for the micro-issue voter to reap their own harvests. It was a very clever strategy and Kamala Harris and the Democratic party did not have an answer. Playing decent politics is not a way to beat Trump.

A major portion of the American psyche is averse to presumed weakness; yet its apparent fragility under pressure is like thin glass under the heavy weight of steel containers. As I have continuously penned on different occasions, American mindset has been conditioned by Clint Eastwood and John Wayne-dialogues on the Hollywood screen: compassion and forgiveness have been substituted by retribution and eye-for-an-eye rhetoric. However, a philosophical analysis of the ground situation is redundant today. A man who has wronged a whole nation must be confronted on all fronts and without mercy and without hesitancy.

Does the current Democratic party have that spine and bravery to do that? The easiest answer is NO. The current leadership, especially in the Senate in the person of Chuck Schumer, clearly lacks that element of character and political foresight and that deficiency is gross and transparent. The brazen fashion in which Trump is normalizing and weaponizing the Department of Justice (DOJ) and commanding that lawyers in the DOJ follow his ‘decrees’ brings forth a notion that he believes that he is not just the President elected by the people, but he is America and he is the Constitution and he is the rule of law. A Napoleonic approach to governance is being set in place and the Republican legislators and Senators have chosen to go along the same destructive path. Where it ends, one does not know.

Chris Murphy, junior Senator for Connecticut presented a clear case for corrupt practices executed by Trump and his henchmen. And that speech in the well of the US Senate went unchallenged and unanswered. One simply cannot justify what Trump and his new friend Elon Musk are doing to America. Treating the country one governs as his or her personal property is not an option for the people. In the context of democratic governance, one is elected to power for a specific period of time and at the end of that term he or she has to go before the people again. That is the fundamental demand of the American Constitution.

Then comes the subject of tariffs. To everyone’s mocking and laughter, Trump declared that America will be sick of being rich in money as a result of tariffs coming from the countries that he has chosen to impose tariffs on. His knowledge on economics is not zero, it’s below zero. For him every action, every executive order that  he is issuing, he believes, is taking place in a vacuum. Nothing else exists; there is no room for a context, and he sees only black and white, no space for shades and shadows. His understanding of the human condition is naught. Such a mindset belongs to the extreme cases such as  Hitler, Mussolini, Noriega, Stalin and Beria.

But the case for democracy becomes more precarious not because of Donald Trump. It becomes increasingly more challenging because of the inaction and lethargy and inability of the legitimate opposition, the Democratic Party and its leadership. People at the bottom will not rise automatically. Because the ground situation has not reached that point as evidenced in the various third world countries that went through such decline in economic collapse and civil life. An economically sophisticated society, yet backward in refined sociocultural aspects, America is being slavishly controlled by a narcissist like Donald Trump. Undoing of her cultural richness and social sophistication  might ultimately lead to the truism of the satirical observation of Oscar Wilde: “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between”. The only element that can prove Wilde wrong is the American people themselves.

*The writer can be reached at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com