For the next four years, it will be very important to differentiate between the Trump show and the Trump danger. Between what gets people talking and amuses the gallery and what can have lasting harmful effects.
Posted at 7:30 p.m.
Donald Trump knows when he needs to be a comedian. He is even quite good, which makes him sympathetic in the eyes of a part of the electorate who likes to see a billionaire-president capable of all kinds of antics… which make us forget the essentials.
So, the cookie-cutter speeches, the Nazi salutes (or not… while we’re talking about that, let’s avoid the essential) of Elon Musk and his vicious attacks on all those he considers adversaries , these are all diversions that are part of the Trump show.
Even its territorial claims to Greenland or Canada are diversions. Same thing for the Panama Canal, which was entitled to special treatment in its inauguration speech. It’s an old fad of the American right since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and promising to win it back therefore pleases a significant part of its electoral base.
As for the customs duties that should be imposed on Canada and Mexico, we can say that it is above all a question of showing who is the strongest, which also pleases the president’s electoral base.
The maneuver would also fill the coffers of a state which refuses to take measures to reduce its deficit. As a bonus, this helps justify its new External Revenue Service.
Even if the tariffs are completely unjustified, Canada is capable of responding to them. We will have to succeed in hurting targeted sectors of the American economy, which Canada has already done successfully.
So where is the Trump danger? It affects the entire planet, not just the United States.
The most significant effect is the loss of another four years in the fight against climate change. A phenomenon that threatens us all and which is absolutely undeniable, even if the President of the United States claims that it is a hoax, a bad joke. A “hoax”, he likes to say.
In short, the most powerful man in the world considers that an existential threat to the planet can be dismissed out of hand since it harms his political objectives.
A sign of the times, one of Mr. Trump’s first actions was to rehire with pay the approximately 8,000 military personnel who had had to leave the armed forces because they refused the COVID-19 vaccine. It shows that the rejection of science is something that is deeply rooted in him.
-In fact, Mr. Trump’s only policy that addresses the environment is limited to drilling for even more fossil fuels. “ Drill, baby, drill “, he repeated.
Not only does the richest country in the world not want to set an example, but it is once again leaving the Paris agreement.
How, then, can we ask China or other major polluters to consider that climate change requires energetic action on their part?
This is undoubtedly what is most terrible about Donald Trump’s return to power: the “hoax” will continue to wreak havoc that could be irreversible.
Instead of being proactive, the United States will therefore spend President Trump’s next term repairing the damage caused by floods, droughts, storms and other effects of climate change, since, according to the president, they do not exist .
A word about American democracy. It has been undermined in recent days, both by President Biden’s preventive and family pardons and by the authoritarian instincts of the new president, who, as if he wanted to rewrite history, pardoned even the most violent rioters who took over the Capitol during the failed coup d’état of January 6, 2021.
For now, Mr. Trump enjoys immense power, with control of both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court.
The Constitution based on counter-powers (checks and balances in English) nevertheless wanted to avoid such a concentration of powers.
But American institutions are solid and have already seen worse. Already, in two years, this president who does not have the right to run again will undergo the test of the mid-term elections, traditionally difficult for the party in power.
Its slim majorities in both houses of Congress could well evaporate. It would then become what the Americans call a lame ducka lame politician who can only wait out his last term.
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