Since November 5th, many have had to come to terms with the imminent return of Donald J.Trump to the US Presidency. There had been hopes back in 2016 that Trump’s rhetoric was just that, and that he’d moderate upon taking the Presidency. But beyond Trumpist apologists, and contrarians looking to get a rise out of people, it can’t honestly be believed that anyone in the UK ever held such delusions. His persistently poor approval ratings in the UK leave little doubt that Brits have long understood that he is a thug (and a malicious, spiteful one). But now, the will of formal and informal opposition in the U.S. has weakened. Big businesses have bent over so far that you can almost imagine Bezos and Zuckerberg perfecting their tantric yoga over the autumn.
Amazon has abandoned its efforts to support racial, gender and sexual diversity. Facebook has scrapped fact-checking and is amplifying divisive political content, blathering about the age-old right wing claim of ‘fighting censorship’. These powerful institutions, despite their potential to do good, have abdicated all responsibility their social power gives them. Like spoiled brats, they complain about mistreatment by regulators whilst sucking up to bullies, unwilling to stand by any ideal beyond the narrow interests of their owners. The commitments these same companies made towards equality in 2020 and subsequent years have been exposed for what they are: paper-thin promises that endured for as long as they were useful to their owners. The moment the time came for them to stand by their principles, so many of these self-proclaimed ‘leaders’ abandoned putative attempts to use their wealth for good.
Instead they’ve run to embrace and coddle the 47th President, falling over each other to suckle on the teat of an administration poised to favour corporate friends and assail anyone who dares offend it. A local weather reporter in Milwaukee who criticised Elon Musk’s curious hand gesture that many likened to a Nazi salute was sacked. All the conservative outrage about ‘cancel culture’ in response to valid criticisms has been a confession of their guilt and intentions – threatening the judiciary, the credit of the United States and US allies without any consequences. They do not care about freedom of speech or the right to an opinion different to theirs. Domination is what they desire: a system, where their beliefs are coddled, free of the inconvenient liberal bias of reality, the critical thinking fostered by public education, and the liberalising effects of tolerance. They no longer dream of a Shining City on a Hill. They hope for a nation governed like a quarantined plague port, where the poor are left to suffer and die and the rest of the world is kept away, beyond the horizon.
In case you were wondering whether this support from the wealthy and influential is in response to some new, moderate Trump, let’s not forget about the cruelty oozing out of the administration. His verbal assaults on LGBTQ+ individuals and reactionary executive orders signed in his first days have triggered a surge of calls to LGBTQ+ mental health crisis hotlines. He has authorised federal raids in defiance of state’s wills, leading to to plainclothes officers detaining numerous citizens-including a veteran-without cause.This is all in search of migrants who, under the Laken Riley Act (a grotesque exploitation of a personal tragedy for political gain) can now be detained upon being charged, even without a conviction, because fuck habeas corpus. Even without great legislative success, his anti-immigrant rhetoric has already produced a crisis in the food industry. Still vindictive over the effect his botched-handling of the COVID-19 pandemic had in booting him from office in 2020, he has halted meetings of the National Institutes of Health, frozen travel and training programs, and cancelled research-grants. He has withdrawn protective details from former advisors John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, both still under threat from Iran. He has abandoned former US allies in Afghanistan to the Taliban. His various threats against US allies Panama, Canada, and Denmark need no further explanation, nor do his persistent threats to levy economically destructive tariffs which would pulverise the global working and middle classes. He combines this with an inflation-driving addiction to low interest rates, while supporting the billionaires who bankrolled his return to power with more tax cuts. By the time this article is printed, he will have committed innumerable further outrages – I can’t keep up.
All of this, obviously, merits his selection as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year over far more deserving candidates like Gisele Pelicot.
Clearly, Trump 2.0 will be an even less restrained, more vindictive, and deeply spiteful rendition of his first term. Surrounded by washed-up sycophants, his administration will do great damage to America’s international standing, and debase its domestic progress. In all honesty, I lack any degree of sympathy for many of his voters and wealthy backers. The aspiring oligarchs who ran to Trump’s side will be humiliated once this relic of the ‘80s and his kakistocracy of cronies leave office, with no federal favours to shield them from their consumers’ anger. His inflation-wary voters can look forward to the significant inflation Trump’s tariffs will cause-if he ever gets around to implementing them. His close friend Elon Musk will grow frustrated when he realises that, buried somewhere deep in an Ozempic-deflated shell, The Donald has his own views and can’t be jerked about like a puppet. Not without unsalutary favours to motivate his pitifully transactional mind. The police unions that backed him can take succor in Trump’s pardons for January 6th rioters who assaulted their officers, tasering and beating them. Industrial workers can look on as Trump reveals himself, more clearly than any time since he descended that Golden Escalator in 2015, as a true member of America’s elite, discarding their interests to the dustbin of history. Zoomers and Millennials who drank the Kool-Aid and convinced themselves that the man who almost started a war with Iran in 2020 was a ‘peacemaker,’ will have ample time to reconsider when they find themselves drafted into the Battle of Toronto, harassed by hockey-mascot-emblazoned guerillas.
Donald Trump will be a disaster for America and the world. That goes without saying. But I find respite from how funny and deeply cathartic it will be when Trump disappoints his unwieldy coalition of supporters. There is no real impediments restraining him this time – neither an opposition-controlled Congress nor courts able to enforce their decisions to rein him in. But when it turns out that there is no magic ‘lower inflation’ button, that tariffs aren’t the cure for cancer, and that there were real reasons why the US upheld its international alliances, there will only be one person to blame: the Poundland Plutocrat. Democrats cannot take the Fetterman approach joining the procession of grovelling and scraping before the new emperor, accepting Trump’s outrages in the name of bipartisanship when that idea died years ago. If they take the role of competent, active opposition, perhaps US democracy can be pulled out of its depths and a new covenant forged between the government and its people.
Until then, sit back and enjoy the ride.