The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Will capitalism collapse like a house of cards?

2020-04-02T02:18:38.148Z


Novelist Douglas Kennedy denounces Trump's management in this "virological twilight of the gods" and predicts a nightmare for millions of Americans


A week ago, I swore I would never see the news on television again. I came to the conclusion that, in times of crisis, the constant flow of information becomes a kind of hamster wheel in your head. It spins and spins and spins, overwhelming you with images of a catastrophic present, indefinitely repeating what you already know, causing existential panic in all directions. And, like a hamster wheel, it gets you nowhere. It is the myth of Sisyphus in electronic version, exacerbated by our overconnected age.

But a few days ago, I broke my promise when a writer friend of mine sent me a message from New York: “Turn on the television. Trump is breaking his own crazy records. ”

Thirty seconds later, I was standing in front of the only television in my Maine home (where I am confined - to use the new buzzword - with my 23-year-old daughter, Amelia, and her boyfriend Zach since the epidemic spread to our lives). And there, on CNN, that charlatan property developer, turned reality star and, later, nominal boss of the so-called free world, kept his speech. In this case, he looked like a contest presenter with very bad makeup and even worse wigs. He was trying to assure the nation that this viral episode would be blown away by Easter Sunday. He hoped that churches across the country would be packed for the annual celebration of the resurrection of Christ, after his horrible episode on the cross.

Even by Trump's standards of insanity, this statement was totally irrational. Trump is a New Yorker like me. The relentless advance of Covid-19 has made our hometown the US epicenter for the virus, with new cases doubling every three days. New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose voice carries furious realism and powerful local leadership in these dizzying times, warned earlier that day of an impending health catastrophe for the city. He explained that New York needed 30,000 respirators, but they only had 400 and 7,000 were expected, promised by the federal government. He also said that the $ 3.8 billion allocated to New York in the Senate emergency plan was insufficient, given the devastation that was taking place in the city. According to him, 15,000 million were needed.

"In the United States, where there is almost nothing left of the Social Security network, the nightmare that awaits millions of people will be terrible"

The most fascinating thing about Trump's paschal fantasy is the way he deftly addressed the evangelists who adopted this fiercely venal and corrupt man as one of his fellow crusaders.

Trump has been accused of rape. Trump's lovers were pornstars; even one of them described sex with him as "the worst ninety seconds of my life." Trump treats women as disposable objects, but he ran for the 2016 election as a social conservative and elected Mike Pence as vice president: a Christian fundamentalist, homophobe, and avowed anti-feminist, who has the charming habit of calling his wife "Mother." . Pence's election was a stroke of genius, uniting the evangelical base to the cause of Trump. Trump's love affair with this inveterate charmer, of dubious Christian overtones, reached new heights when he appointed two deeply conservative justices to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, accused of sexual assault. These men did not hide their opposition to abortion, which means that the Republican majority that legalized it nationwide in 1973 - the so-called Roe vs. Wade case - could be reversed in the coming years. But Roe's eradication against Wade is the Holy Grail of evangelicals in the culture war that has divided the United States since 1968.

In reality, Trump's need to link Easter to the promise of a commercial revival was a nod to the white and Christian conservatives who helped him get elected against all logic almost four years ago. These men will remain faithful, even knowing that he is a complete hypocrite, if the next elections are held in November of this year (but since everything is subject to a cancellation these days, I would not be surprised if this last symbol of the democratic election is also suspended soon).

However, it was also a reminder that, even in this time of dire world crisis - which revealed the utter lack of preparedness of the United States federal government to help its citizens survive this twilight of the virological gods - Trump He continues to cultivate in our national discourse the deep divisions that he himself has amplified and deepened.

A history lesson: Richard Nixon won the White House in 1968 thanks to his southern strategy, based on the hatred of southern states against civil rights legislation (which guaranteed the rights of African Americans as equal citizens) passed by Congress under the leadership of Texas Democrat Lyndon Johnson. Nixon had also toyed with white men's fear of minorities: women, radicals, and hippies for free love (it was '68, after all), claiming that there was a "silent majority" in the United States. who rejected the educated progressivism of New York, California, and the major cities of the north. He also publicly denounced everything that could be perceived as intellectual and cultured (although privately he was a jazz fanatic and a history buff). Neglecting things of the intellect is an old American habit ... especially among populists. Ronald Reagan, in turn, wooed the Christian right in 1980, which suddenly acquired immense political capital during his presidency. And the two Bushes - Junior himself became a born-again Christian to cure his alcoholism - also gave evangelicals what they wanted.

This is how Trump spoke to his bases when he played the "get back to work for Easter" card. In the same way that he was trying to convince Wall Street and large companies that " business as usual " was not far off. A few hours before writing this article, I spoke on the phone with a friend from the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He told me: "Our current state of confinement, the closing of borders, the cessation of daily life (except for strict dietary or medical needs) will last, at best, another six weeks ... and that is the optimistic estimate " The economic damage will be colossal and with the fiscal devastation will come the personal devastation. In the United States, where there is almost nothing left of the Social Safety Net after decades of cuts and where Obamacare is a not entirely acceptable (although essential) national health system, the nightmare that awaits millions of people will be terrible.

Since the 1980s reaganomics [the then president's neoliberal-inspired economic policy], the once prosperous and stable American middle class has been destroyed. Manhattan, my native island, was once inhabited by working class families. In my family there were four of us and we lived in an apartment of 60 square meters. Right now, Manhattan is only accessible to the wealthy. Today, to live as a young artist in any major city in America, you have to live on income or have two or three jobs at once. And, deep in the United States, the fight for economic survival is tough in the context of hyper-market monoculture. Will American capitalism collapse like a house of cards when Covid-19 is dimmed? My friends on the American left see hope in the impending carnage; the hope that can bring about a radical change, a New Deal to bring the country out of a huge depression. Of course, I too would love to see such a turnaround at the national level, just as I watched with dismay as the Republican majority in the Senate tried to twist the bailout plan of the big multinationals at the expense of the workers who are now in full swing. economic free fall.

"I am not going to act as a political scientist and affirm that the only positive side effect will be the end of Trump. He is the Rasputin of modern politics"

I am not going to be a political scientist and claim that the only positive side effect of Covid-19 will be the end of President Trump. Especially since he is the Rasputin of modern politics. Remember how that mystical Russian charlatan, shot by enemies who wanted to end his infamy, managed to get up and pounce on them? Trump has the same toxic resistance. Given that there are now two Americas, which sincerely hate each other, it would not be surprising if Trump's base continued to support him ... even if that means voting against his own interests.

I write these words just a few meters from a beautiful coastline in a State ruled by a wonderful progressive woman, Janet Mills, where gay marriage and cannabis are legalized, where you can get all the homemade beer you want, go to awesome classical music festivals and of cinema of author, prestigious universities and restaurants of local and fresh food. Maine, along its majestic Atlantic coast, embodies everything that educated Americans on the left appreciate. Similarly, there is a conservative and economically rugged part of the rural state that votes for Trump and sees coastal residents as the embodiment of snobbish elitism. Cultural warfare is never far from your door in contemporary America. From now on, neither is the prospect of terrible difficulties. Just before leaving New York, I went to listen to a pianist friend in a small jazz club. Divorced and the father of two children, he lives from concert to concert, completing his income with music lessons. "We are a few days away from a general running of the bulls," he told me as he took a drink between sets. "When this happens, the jazz clubs will be closed, my students will not be able to come to my house ... and the money will dry up. Being a pianist in New York, I have no savings. How am I going to survive? ”

I didn't know how to answer his desperate question. However, over the past two weeks I have repeatedly heard that same question in conversations with many of my artist friends from New York and elsewhere. Although they receive symbolic financial aid from the federal government, they know that when the United States returns to work, they will be up to their necks in debt. And once the eviction moratorium ends, they risk going out on the street. Thanks to advocates of the supply economy and worshipers of Milton Friedman who have dictated American fiscal policy for the past forty years, we now live in a high-tech version of 19th-century capitalism, fueled by a powerful subtext of social Darwinism. . In some time, when we are all dust, I would not be surprised if future historians wrote: "When an invisible viral threat spread across the country in early 2020, it showed with ruthless clarity how dying the much-praised dream had become American".

Translation by Miriam Espinar.

Douglas Kennedy is an American writer, author of novels like In Search of Happiness and The Symphony of Chance (Harp). In June he will publish A Special Relationship at the same publisher.

Source: elparis

All life articles on 2020-04-02

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.