H. L. D. Mahindapala
Democracy
is fragile.
It is more
fragile that the window panes of the Congress that were smashed by the mob
unleashed by President Donald Trump. It is the ultimate symbol of the
desecration of American democracy. The world watched in horror as the
misinformed, misguided, politically driven mob went berserk destroying not so
much the material that stood in their way but the fundamental values of the
holiest shrine of democracy that came crumbling down with not a single guardian
of the law in sight to stop it.
It was a
sad spectacle. A delusional Trump, who refused to accept the grim realities facing
him, tried every trick in the book to retain power which he had lost. The
voters told him to go. The courts told him to go – 62 times, sometimes by
judges appointed by him. The states which he tried to bully told him to go.
Some of his best friends and advisers told him to go. He didn’t budge. He
believed fanatically in his narrative that his victory was stolen by Biden. His
perennial penchant to wallow in his own lies was pathological.
When all
his legal and political tactics failed he tried violence. He
instigated the mob and told them to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue because
we can never get back our country with weakness”. His legal side-kick, Rudy
Giuliani, told the crowd that there should be a trial by combat”. The
veiled messages were quite transparent. Like Hitler, Trump made use of the
democratic processes and democratic institutions to undermine the very
foundations of democracy. His power was in manipulating the racist slogan of
Making America Great” which meant reinforcing the power of the White
Supremacists. He was aided and abetted by the Right-wing racist media,
particularly the media run by Uncle Rupey” Murdoch – a favoured guest at
Mar-a-Lago club owned by Trump. His media lackeys at Fox News – Sean
Hannity, Tucker Carlson etc.,– have been blind devotees of
Trumpism. They white-washed and justified every move made by Trump, even the
violence unleashed at the Congress.
Buoyed by
the adulation of his followers (72 million voted for him) he once told a
campaign rally : I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue
and shoot somebody and I would not lose voters.” His meteoric rise cast a spell
on America. His White nationalism swept across America, from coast to coast,
making him a folk hero. He rose to be the new symbol of America.
The grassroot forces were rallying behind him with a fervour not seen before.
He resonated with their aspirations and their hates.
So, when
the voters turned against him it shattered his own beliefs. He had vested
so much of faith in his own powers that he refused to face the reality. He
began with a bang. His idiosyncratic style that mesmerised the base of the
Republican Party made him the most formidable force overnight. The message went
along with it with his brash style. Together they galvanised the broader
base of White America. He created a new political culture with his incessant
tweets, political messages, aimed at creating (successfully!) an alternative
reality. The traditional conservatives who ruled the Republican Party lost
their grip. He became the Republic Party and the stalwarts fell in
line behind him. The power he acquired overnight was intoxicating
and also toxic. Trumpism was the ideology worshipped by his Republican and
non-Republican loyalists. He became law unto himself and he believed, quite
seriously, that he was the chosen one”, the messiah sent to save America and
the world. He believed in his mystical power to overcome all obstacles,
including Corona virus which he did thanks to the specialist services of
the military hospital. His garish theatrics on the international stage
too enhanced his stature at the base. He was relying solely on his base. All
what he did was mainly to impress and consolidate his base and he
believed that he was invincible as long as the base was with him. He became a
one-man band. It as the college-educated, sophisticated urban voters that
rejected him.
In the end,
the big man was brought down by a small bug : Coronovid-19. He lost his glamour
with each death. Lost in the myths of his own invincible powers – he referred
constantly to whatever he did as the greatest in history — he thought he
could ride over the pandemic by dismissing it lightly as another kind of flu.
But the menacing virus caught up with him and made him pay for his idiocy.
His anti-science, anti-minorities, anti-climate change, anti-internationalism,
pro-authoritarian regimes were a medley of policies that he could sell to his
base with applause. But the educated class was running away from
him. The rural areas stuck with him in the last election. But the
sophisticates revolted.
All
told, he found himself drifting away too far from the mainstream. The
more he drifted away the more he lost touch with reality. He refused to
recognise the new realities sprouting under his feet and
destabilising him. He fancied that he had the power and the following to go
against the will of the people. Like all authoritarian figures he was
hoping to rewrite history in his own fashion. But after going along with
him initially, after taking a few steps with him for a short while, history
turned against him.
In the end
he brought down the great Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln and
reduced it to zilch. He did a Ranil Wickremesinghe. He lost the Presidency. He
lost the House. And he lost the Senate. He lost even his most loyal aide who
stood by him throughout his troubled reign, Mike Pence, the Vice-president. He
was stepping out too far from the traditional, acceptable framework that held
America together. Most of all, he divided the formidable Right-wing of America.
Brining the Right-wing under his leadership will be the biggest headache for
the Republicans. His success or failure in the opposition will
depend on his ability to unite the Right-wing forces under his wing. After the
failure of his attempted coup” it is doubtful whether he could rally the Right
around him. He lost his spell in the debacle at the Congress. He can never live
it down. It will haunt him for the rest of his days. He has alienated
practically everyone except, perhaps, his family. Today he is a lonely
man nursing his emotional wounds. His only escape route is to blame
everyone else for his fall, created by his own self-destructive
strategies.
But it is
too early to write him off. He will not walk out of the White House as a dead
man. He still has some clout in his base. In his own way, he has radicalised
American politics. He has injected a new strain of hate into the liberal
political culture of America. It is just not his version of Munroism
trying to make America Great in isolation from within. His inward-looking
view is not mere navel gazing. He has touched and livened the raw nerve of
America that was buried deep in its culture. He represents that side of America
which is brash, rash, garish, loud, vigorous, inward-looking, narrow-minded and
ready to break through all obstacles even if it means doing it the crude
way.
In a sense
– and without meaning to demean the genius of Walt Whitman – he represents the
athletic, energetic, confident power of Whitmanasque America that was ready to
break through all obstacles in its predatory explorations of conquering the
wild west, destroying civilisations, devastating the pristine glory of
untouched nature and polluting every inch of land, lakes and loftiness filled
with pure air in its virgin state. He had no idea of the other side of America
: the tender, sensitive, caring, cultured, quiet world of Emily Dickinson,
Robert Frost and Thoreau. He was the farthest away from John Steinbeck’s Grapes
of Wrath – the great American classic that idealised the socialist
society. Donald Trump stood only for one man: Donald Trump. America has never
seen the likes of him ever before. And it is not likely to see another one
soon. But he leaves behind a menacing legacy: he has sown the seeds of American
fascism to grow in the declining years ahead.
America
after Trump will trend towards more violence. It can be a dangerous place
as seen by Trump’s behaviour of encouraging the mob to march down
Pennsylvanian Avenue. Trumpism is the first manifestation of all the
organised crudities of the red-necked White Supremacists which have deep roots
in America. The rise of Trumpism has been the triumph of Right-wing
proto-fascists who have been struggling underground to capture power within the
liberal framework of the great democratic laboratory of the world. It exploits
of the political and social fears of this deep layer of American society. The
promise of making America Great has been a marketable euphemism to
enthrone the power of the White Supremacists. The power Trumpism lies in this
hidden agenda.
Trump is
the personification of all the crudities of this sub-layer of the American
political culture. He is the absolute opposite of Barack Obama, the refined,
cultured, symbol of finesse that has given a shine to the best in the American
political tradition. The way he and his family conducted themselves in the
White House was comparable to the aristocratic Kennedys who raised a new wave
of hope to America and the world. After Obama the fall of America into the
hands of Trump is like the fall of Adam into the disastrous temptations of the
Snake in the Garden of Eden. Adam also fell when he became a Trump – a
pussy-grabbing” rake.
Is he an
aberration? Yes and no. He is an aberration because he is the first of his
kind. But America has the potential to produce many more Trumps. He must be
considered as a pathfinder for the deep roots of American authoritarianism that
has been lying untapped all these years. He is the maverick who dared to come
up from outside and take over the establishment giving respectability and
acceptability to the hidden roots of American authoritarianism that was waiting
for a leader. He has captured the minds of rural base and psychologically
terrorized the American Right, including the elite in the Republican Party
leaders. Mick Romney and the late John Cain are two leading Republican who had
the guts to challenge him. But the rest are hedging their bets. They are scared
that with his political clout in the Republican base he could tip the scales in
their electorates with his approval or disapproval at the next election.
He will
still remain as a force — but a divisive force in the Right. Of course, there
is a chance that he will be the first president of America to go to jail. The
string of charges is so numerous that under the law of averages he is
bound to be convicted on at least one of them, according to legal
experts. This will be his biggest nightmare. But the Right-wing of
America will not let him die. His legacy that came from the embedded right-wing
extremists will go underground and pose a serious threat to Joe Biden. He has
the backing of the heavily armed Oath Keepers, Proud Boys who have vowed
to fight if Trump loses. He has also dodged condemning the KKK, neo-Nazis,
anti-semitic, anti-black, anti-feminist, anti-gay and the minorities who
are favoured by the liberal left. They are his backbone. He
will survive in their hearts and minds and will mobilise their forces to
bring him back in 2025, if they can. With his political clout in
the base, he still could influence the outcome of Congress and Senate electoral
results. So, even the Right-wing establishment will be in a dilemma
not knowing how to handle him.
But hold on
for a minute. I must add the latest news. The 5 a.m. news (Saturday
morning) says that Twitter has chopped off Trump’s right hand. For the first
time Twitter has permanently – I repeat permanently – suspended his account
due to risk of further incitement of violence.” This could paralyse – at least
temporarily – Trump who claims that he has a following of 88 million twitters.
He has relied on it so much that he had dismissed the mainstream
media as irrelevant. He called them the fake news” and ridiculed
them because he could dish out his narrative to his loyal followers through
Twitter. Now he is faced with a communication problem. His success depended
solely on manipulating the news. Along with Twitter Facebook and
Instagram he ran his own news programs. Now all three have cut him off. His
lies gained currency mainly through Twitter. Furthermore, twittering has been
his main job when he is not watching television, or playing golf. Now he
is a loner, well and truly.
On top of
this big blow comes the news that the Republicans are breaking rank to
attack him. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski has openly called for the
resignation of the President. Lindsay Graham, one of his loyal followers, stood
on the floor of the Senate, after the mob attack, and said : It’s over. The
election is over. It’s over.” If Sen. Graham thought the issue was over he was
wrong. Trump’s angry loyalists mobbed him at the airport and shouted: ”Traitor!
Traitor!”
The worst
is the move from both sides of the House to impeach Trump. If it happens, he
will set another precedent of being the first President to be impeached
twice. Evidence of the President inciting the mob to unleash violence too is
mounting. Sen. Mike Lee has recorded that at 2.26 p.m. when the mob was running
berserk Trump had asked him to object to the certification of the electoral
votes. Even at that critical moment he was obsessed with the overturning of the
election result. Legal experts say that, in the middle of the biggest security
threat to the Congress, he was not concerned as the Commander-in-Chief about
the security and law and order of the nation but his own fortunes.
The task
before Joe Biden is monumental. America is a patient dying at the new
rate of 20,000 a week now. That is the latest figure for the first week of
January. Trump, the Grim Reaper, is the first President who leaves behind a
legacy of burying the second highest number of Americans since the Civil War
which claimed 600,000 victims. Trump has passed 300,000 mark. Mercifully,
he has agreed to depart peacefully after desecrating the sacred political
temple enshrined in the American Constitution – the Holy Bible that guides
America.
The last
gamble of Trump was to resort to violence. That backfired on him. Even the
Republican ranks, who were lukewarm, were shocked by the physical threat
that endangered their lives inside the Congress. Hopefully, he will depart
without causing any havoc between now and Janaury 20 – the inauguration day.
Joe Biden
has his job cut out for him. He has to heal, repair, patch up, bandage,
operate, and keep America in a nursing home until she recovers fully. To do
that, he may have to go for a New Deal of the Rooseveltian type. Hopefully he
may not have the need to sack the Supreme Court which obstructed Roosevelt’s
deal to serve the people. Fortunately, Trump, with his swagger and bluster
in the last rally in Georgia, removed the main political
obstruction that was in Biden’s path when the Republicans lost the two Senate
seats. Biden now has the presidency and both houses of Congress in his hands
though the razor thin margin is still dicey.
In the post
-Corvid-19 phase, the American mood will be amenable to accept Rooseveltian
socialism”. Lifting the victims of the pandemic and poverty will strike a
chord in the heart of America. Law-makers from both sides of the Congress will
find it difficult, morally and politically, to say no the urgent needs of
victims of Trump.
Trump will
continue to make the headlines. Biden will have to look after the
breadlines. Initially there won’t be much of an opposition from the Right-wing
which is discredited. Their fear-mongering with cries of communism” and
socialism” will not have the same impact as that of McCarthy – another
lying Goebbels. The post-Corvid-19 phase needs compassion not fear. Biden
is expected to walk in the footsteps of Obama, particularly in healthcare. The
pandemic has created the right political climate for restoring the Obama care
program. Biden has all the tools necessary to lift America from the
depths of Trumpist disasters. He can’t lose because he has
not other path to follow other than the compassionate route to
recovery.
