United States: on the edge of the abyss

It is exhausting living here.

We are a bewildered, quarrelsome, and half-mad nation.

America is a terrifying mix of

TV

, banana republic, and failed state.

In just four years we have lost sight of everything: the rule of law, a minimal sense of decency, truth and faith in government and national governance.

As I write these lines, the president of the United States dances on stage to the music of the Village People, in a packed auditorium and in the midst of a pandemic that has killed 215,000 Americans and is sure to kill some of those in attendance.

Our president is clinically insane.

The world knows it, the Republican Party knows it and even its followers know it.

He has also committed dozens of crimes and acts worthy of dismissal while in power and the only thing that saves him is that there are so many that nobody can focus on just one.

Just a few weeks ago, on a Monday, we learned that he had not paid taxes in 10 of the last 15 years.

The next day, during a debate with Joe Biden, he told members of the supremacist militias to “stand down and stand by”;

waiting for a civil war.

Towards the end of that week we learned that he and 32 other White House staff had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

'Flags I, 1973'.

This work can currently be enjoyed at the Caixaforum Madrid exhibition 'The American Dream.

From pop to today '.

© The Trustees of the British Museum.

© Jasper Johns, VEGAP, Barcelona, ​​2020.

We have had 200 such weeks, weeks that seem like years, that would have ended any other presidency.

We are sick of this circus.

Republicans consider themselves conservatives, but the Trump years have been the most radical and radicalizing in modern American history.

Trump and his administration are erratic, irrational and reactionary and are willing to tear apart any part of the Constitution that is an obstacle to obtaining their whims.

Ronald Reagan's motto was that government should be efficient but small, not intrusive, almost invisible.

Well, in these four years we have had to deal daily with the government that has interfered the most in our lives in the entire history of our country.

Trump is under our noses every day, telling lies and fomenting discord and hatred, and worst of all, his incompetence constantly absorbs our attention.

His presidency is a car accident from which we have not been able to look away for four years.

Donald Trump rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Bruce Gilden MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT

Last year my family and I needed a respite from the endless chaos of life in America and we went to Spain.

To the Canary Islands.

For three months we lived in La Garita, Gran Canaria;

a very discreet community on the shores of the ocean and away from tourists.

Our children went to school there and we all lived a totally different life full of sanity.

The police did not shoot normal people on the street.

The president did not push his supporters to rebel against the government he was supposed to lead.

When we needed medical assistance, we had it and practically free.

And we didn't have to think about Trump.

It was seldom featured in the local news, in the local newspapers, and in our thinking.

Until the attempt to dismiss him.

Although Trump has committed a hundred crimes that are cause for impeachment, Congress finally chose a specific one, held the corresponding sessions and what we expected happened: the

process began

but he remained in his position.

I don't know why we saw the sessions at La Garita.

We knew it wasn't going to change anything, and it did.

When Nixon committed his crimes, Republicans and Democrats agreed that he had desecrated the office of president and should leave.

But that two-party consensus on honor and decency has disappeared.

Republicans have been silent bystanders as Trump turned our country into a kleptocratic laughingstock.

Demi Lovato in a performance at the Billboard Music Awards in Los Angeles last October.

Rich Polk REUTERS / NBC

Shortly after we returned to California, the coronavirus epidemic broke out and the worst fears we all had about Trump came true.

Until COVID-19, its supporters could cite the strength of the economy as proof that it was justified to choose a golf course developer.

But governing means facing crises rationally and seriously, and Trump has shown that a lunatic narcissist who disdains science, who cannot conceive of the suffering of anyone other than himself, is incapable of leading a country in a historical period. difficult.

The coronavirus wasn't real until he contracted it;

and since he has not died, he despises the lives of those who have.

He has not been heard to say this, but we can be sure that he considers the deceased, such as US soldiers who died in the line of duty, to be "losers" and "losers."

A few years ago I reported on a Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona.

In anticipation of their authoritarian reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests, the Phoenix police, at the end of the rally, fired tear gas at thousands of protesters (including myself).

There was no provocation, no warning.

We were standing peacefully behind a barricade and, an instant later, we began to drown from a yellow gas banned by the UN even as a weapon of war.

The next day I interviewed Senator Jeff Flake, one of the few Republicans in both houses of Congress who had opposed Trump and who, because of his disloyalty, was forced to withdraw from the Senate.

"It's a kind of fever," he said of Trumpism.

"But one day, the fever will go down."

Two black women raise their fists at a George Floyd mural in Minneapolis last October.

Stephen Maturen Getty Images / AFP

Much of the rest of the world, and of course Spain, has historically flirted with authoritarianism.

But the United States - and this is important to note - has never had an authoritarian president.

Even presidents who came from the military, such as Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower, have often been the most critical and distrustful of all things military and the danger of politicizing them.

In general, the most dangerous have been dilettantes like George W. Bush and now Trump.

The latter has used the army, the National Guard, local police and even plain-clothes federal agents to intimidate protesters.

"Crushing force.

Dominion, ”he tweeted on June 2 about the crackdown on protests in Washington, the night after he had ordered the protesters to be violently dispersed so he could pose with a Bible in hand.

These horrors have not diminished the support that his loyal fans lend him.

In most liberal democracies, I hope, such despotic tactics would spell the end of your presidency.

But what Trump's mandate has revealed is that, in reality, many Americans are not committed to democracy.

They are dedicated to maintaining order and the status quo.

After Trump's election, sociologists found that the main trait his supporters shared was not a fondness for orange makeup and yellow hair dye, but a taste for authoritarianism.

They preferred a strong, autocratic leader over the often slow and chaotic consensus-building process inherent in democracy.

They preferred simplicity, rigidity, and obedience.

Until he became president, he would never have said such a thing, but now I am sure that at least a quarter of our country would prefer a

permanent

autocracy

to a true democracy.

A memorial poster for George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Stephen Maturen Getty Images / AFP

There is a lot of work ahead, starting with education.

Too many Americans don't really understand democracy or the seriousness of government.

For decades we have mixed fame and politics so much that most people do not distinguish between the two.

At the first Trump rally I attended, in full campaign, at a Sacramento airport, attendees were dazzled to see the

character arrive

in his private plane.

They laughed at his jokes and took pictures of him in his red cap.

There was nothing remotely resembling a serious discussion on important issues or on administration.

Rather, he spent a long time talking about one of his golf courses.

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There is nothing wrong with people going to an airport to see a television character.

But voting for him to run the country is a sign that we don't know what it's like to govern and that we don't take ourselves, our nation, or our history seriously.

And that is a failure for which we are all responsible as parents, educators and citizens.

Whether we are Republicans or Democrats, we must view the work of government as noble and sacred.

We must regain the sense that all government tasks, large or small, must be carried out with dignity and sobriety, that the leaders we elect must be the best, the most reasonable, the most stable in character.

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In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton performed best in the most highly educated parts of the United States.

Of the top 50 counties, he beat 48. Conversely, Trump performed best in the areas with the lowest education.

Of the 50 lowest-ranked counties, he won 42. So we have a lot to do.

We do not need an elitist government, but we do need one that is competent, uses reason and respects science.

That in 2020 we have to remember the principles of the Enlightenment is tragic, but that's the way we are.

That the United States just won five more Nobel prizes last week, while our president rejects scientific knowledge, what is it?

Tragedy or irony?

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Speaking of science, climate change has made wildfires a permanent part of our lives in California over the past five years.

As the state has become increasingly dry and hot, each fall brings with it new fires;

this year more than 12,000 square kilometers have already been burned.

For millions of residents in the most affected areas, it has become essential to have a travel bag ready, the suitcase with essential items that every Californian family should have on hand in case they evacuate us from one moment to another.

On September 27, I was visiting friends in St. Helena, an hour north of San Francisco, when a fire broke out, burning more than 150 square miles.

I helped them put their things in the car and they drove off while we watched the flames burn on a nearby promontory.

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But there is another type of travel bag for millions of Americans, which is the backpack that we will carry if Trump wins again.

His victory will mean that the United States has disappeared.

That we have given up.

That nothing means nothing anymore and that we have preferred to be an

.

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Many will go to Canada, a colder but more sensible version of the United States.

Many friends of ours are studying the immigration laws of New Zealand and Australia.

In our family we are thinking of going back to La Garita.

We know the schools, we know the menus of all the local restaurants, we are familiar with the Alcampo de Telde and we also know the peaceful promenade along which we walked as civilized beings in a rational society.

What a good feeling.

Dave Eggers

is an American writer.

He directs McSweeney's publishing house, the literary magazine of the same name and the non-governmental organization 826 Valencia.

Timeline Trump Era

2016

Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena wins the Pritzker Prize.

Beyoncé turns her Superbowl performance into an anti-racist statement.

Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu wins the Oscar for best director for

.

, best movie.

Saxophonist Henry Threadgill wins the Pulitzer Prize for the album

.

Lin-Manuel Miranda wins 11 Tonys for the musical

.

Barack Obama inaugurates in Washington the National Museum of African American Art and Culture, designed by architects David Adjaye, J. Max Brond Jr. and Philip Freelon.

Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Paul Beatty wins the Booker for

Donald Trump is elected 45th president of the United States.

2017

Donald Trump is sworn in.

Women's March on Washington.

Paul Auster publishes the novel

The MoMA hangs works by artists from Trump's immigration ban countries.

Emil Ferris publishes

, Eisner Comic Prize.

The film

, directed by Barry Jenkins, wins the Oscar.

Timothy Snyder publishes the pamphlet

The Catalan studio RCR wins the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Colson Whitehead wins the Pulitzer for the novel

.

Kendrick Lamar publishes the album

.

Mark Bradford represents the United States at the Venice Art Biennale.

by George Saunders wins the Booker Prize.

Naomi Klein publishes the essay

Allegations of sexual harassment against film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Days later the

movement

.

2018

Premiere of the movie

, Childish Gambino, Grammy for best song.

, directed by Guillermo del Toro, wins the Oscar.

Del Toro also wins the award for best director.

At $ 110,500,000, a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat becomes the most expensive work by an American artist ever sold at auction.

Novelist Philip Roth dies.

The Baltimore Museum of Art sells paintings by Warhol and Rauschenberg to purchase works by African American artists.

Michelle Obama publishes her memoir,

(

).

The Puerto Rican Bad Bunny publishes the album

2019

Shoshana Zuboff publishes the essay

.

The Mexican Valeria Luiselli publishes

, later translated into Spanish as

.

, directed by Peter Farrelly, wins the Oscar.

The Mexican Alfonso Cuarón, best director for

.

Billie Elish releases the album

The series

airs its last episode.

The Metropolitan Opera of New York and its former director, James Levine, agree to his dismissal for cases of sexual abuse.

directed by Todd Philips, wins the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Literary critic Harold Bloom dies.

New York's MoMA rearranges its collections to accommodate works by women and African Americans.

2020

Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers player, dies.

The Senate acquits Trump in the

process

.

, directed by South Korean Bong Joon-ho, wins the Oscar.

WHO declares the global pandemic due to coronavirus.

Colson Whitehead wins the Pulitzer Prize for the novel

A Minneapolis cop suffocates George Floyd by putting his knee on his neck.

Bob Dylan publishes the album

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies.

, directed by Chloé Zaho, wins the Golden Lion in Venice.

Poet Louise Glück wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Bruce Springsteen publishes the album

Presidential election.

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• Credits

• Coordination and format: Ana Marcos and Brenda Valverde

• Art and design direction: Fernando Hernández

• Design: Ana Fernández

• Layout: Alejandro Gallardo

• Translation: María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia