I returned from an American academic stay with a striking impression: that of a petrified, anxious and pale country. Apart from a few television political advertisements slipped between the promotion of cars and fast food, a deafening silence surrounds the presidential election which is akin to “no eye contact” in New York. It’s like the Civil War (1861-1865): we don’t talk about it. Even my American friends, and classmates from my MBA in the Midwest, whom I have known for almost 40 years, refuse to talk about it. Everyone told me: politics is now like religion, it’s private. Society is so divided that a political discussion is considered an act of desocialization. Political affiliation now leads to a national division, contrary to the American desire to sublimate all differences into higher values, starting with faith in the American flag and the dollar.
Why is Donald Trump more popular than ever?
America does not hate itself when it is defeated: it hides its stigmata. She doesn’t want to be looked at too deeply. But Donald Trump’s career has shined the spotlight on the excesses of this society: the problems of carrying weapons, deaths from addiction, poverty, social and racial divisions are now examined, scrutinized and dissected. And this has become, for many American citizens, intolerable, because these are indeed societal failures.
Conspiracy theory
There is also the dishonor of noting that after what must be called an attempted coup d’état, the instigator of which was not punished, American democracy is weakened. The political system is now leading to the confrontation of two unexpected personalities, leaving many Americans wondering how they got here. And, while the American administration is admired and has formidable organizational power and efficiency, Donald Trump has for eight years disseminated the concept of “Deep State”, which refers to a conspiracy theory that there is a secret, undercover network of government officials working behind the scenes to sabotage Republican policies. Furthermore, more than in other countries, citizens are exhausted by social networks and the media frenzy of “fake news” which disorients the most vulnerable. Even religion no longer constitutes the saving refuge, while powerful evangelical currents influence the election to the point of weakening the role of women.
gullThe United States is a “melting pot”, that is to say literally a melting pot of cultures. Once someone becomes a U.S. citizen, they are the bearer of impeccable progeny.
If its technological sector is flamboyant and it is the leading world power, it is a country which is experiencing deindustrialization, particularly in steel, accentuated by its dependence on China. It is also a country which knows that the Western model is endangered by the BRICS +, and that its hegemony is threatened. Donald Trump’s logorrhea, evoking the great decline of the United States, therefore cracks collective confidence, because it opposes the deep certainties of America and the repetition of the mantra “I’m doing great”, even when everything is going bad. In this context, Donald Trump is bringing the United States back to the trauma of the Vietnamese failure and the crisis of the 1970s.
There is also an indescribable embarrassment regarding the American commitment to Israel, which leads, even if some try to put the parties back to back, to disproportionate violence, to the point where the news of the hurricanes is amplified to divert media attention. In foreign policy, America therefore understands that it is no longer coherent because the values which underlie its foreign policy are imprecise.
Imperialist domination
And then, there is something more intimate. Like it or not, Donald Trump embodies the American economic model that promotes personal success and imperialist domination. But he slipped into eugenics theories, going so far as to suggest that illegal migrants possessed “bad genes”, in addition to portraying them as thieves, rapists and eaters of pets. Donald Trump even suggests that Kamala Harris “became” black for electoral reasons, which also points to a genetic mutation. It’s scary, because all Americans, or their ancestors, are immigrants. This naturally leads to thinking that a migrant who becomes a citizen sees his genes “purified”.
A transformed presidential election
Even the most puritanical presidents, like the Presbyterian Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), who saw the United States as the land promised by God to those who deserved it, never took this step. Indeed, the seal of the United States bears the Latin phrase “E pluribus unum,” meaning “one from many.” The United States is a “melting pot”, that is to say literally a melting pot of cultures. Once someone becomes an American citizen, they carry impeccable lineage, because the common ancestor of all Americans is the first president, George Washington (1732-1799). Genes are therefore common to Americans, which is why the association of illegal immigration with genetic degeneration is not trivial. And this stirs the darkness of souls, because as soon as an immigrant is made an American citizen, his perverse desire is that his co-religionists not be. And this indirectly brings back the horrors of slavery and segregation, whose stigmas and social realities are still present.
More isolationist than ever
In fact, after 40 years of neoliberalism and excessive consumerism combined with the perception of industrial downgrading and racial stratification that has remained very rigid, America no longer knows who it is.
It has always expelled the internal violence associated with the harshness of its economic system, which makes workers vulnerable and deterritorialized, through external wars. But, today, America is more isolationist than ever, which means it is reinstating this domestic violence. Half of Republican America places its hopes in Donald Trump, who embodies what it no longer is. The other half is pale, aware that America will not be forgiven for its mistakes.
