The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The US situation in 2020: Trump's dangerous Götterdämmerung

2020-12-23T11:13:56.259Z


The outgoing US President tricks and threats to stay in power. Why he won't get away with his pseudo coup, but the consequences for US democracy could be fatal. That is the situation in the United States.


Jackie Speier knows how dangerous cults can be.

In 1978 the US Democrat was seriously injured while investigating human rights abuses in the fanatic community of Jonestown in Guyana.

Sectarians shot dead Speier's boss at the time, Congressman Leo Ryan, and four other visitors;

Speier survived by pretending to be dead.

Shortly afterwards, cult leader Jim Jones and more than 900 followers died of mass suicide and mass murder.

42 years later, Speier - who has been in the US Congress since 2008 - sees similarities between Jim Jones and Donald Trump, between Jonestown and Trumpworld.

"The parallels are pretty clear," she told the Daily Beast website.

Personality cult, brainwashing, end-time fantasies: Trump is doing "the same".

Icon: enlarge

Trump's unruly exit: Götterdämmerung over the White House

Photo: Andrew Harnik / AP

Trump's unruly departure, half would-be coup, half tragic-comedy, provokes other comparisons.

He reminds some of "King Lear", others of Orson Welles' movie classic "Citizen Kane", which is currently experiencing a renaissance in the USA.

“Citizen Kane” has always been Trump's “favorite film of all time”: In the end, the fictional press baron Charles Foster Kane dies in a maddened state and abandoned Xanadu in his castle - “a lonely, sad figure,” Trump pondered in 2015.

All of these stories end in death and tragedy.

This is also Trump's greatest fear.

Since the election, like Lear and Kane, he has been wandering through the White House, tweeting, raging, driven by increasingly grotesque fantasies of how he can stay in office.

If you don't play along, you'll be cast out - whether it's Vice President Mike Pence, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows or Chief Senator Mitch McConnell.

No wonder that (almost) all Trumps have left the »Titanic«.

Even the arch-conservative TV preacher Pat Robertson recognizes that Trump is only haunted by "an alternative reality": high time for the current president to "go on his way," according to his advice.

Trump's circle has shrunk to a handful of dubious men, led by Michael Flynn, the ex-security advisor convicted of perjury but pardoned by Trump, and ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who allegedly charges $ 20,000 a day for his services as a lawyer.

Giuliani is also being investigated, and here, too, there is a pardon, like other people in Trump's orbit - including allegedly the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was sued in the US in the Jamal Khashoggi case.

No conspiracy theory is too absurd to refresh Trump's sore soul.

An example: Hugo Chavez († 2013) is said to have manipulated the 2020 elections.

No act of sabotage is too radical to prevent Joe Biden from taking office - including the military coup, as retired General Flynn recently suggested.

Trump himself pardoned 15 people on Tuesday, including loyal companions.

Icon: enlarge

No conspiracy theory seems too absurd for him: Trump lawyer Giuliani

Photo: JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS

In the meantime, even Attorney General Bill Barr, one of Trump's most loyal henchmen, quickly distanced himself before leaving early for Christmas to leave the still looming drama to his deputy Jeff Rosen.

The army leadership also felt compelled to clarify: "The US military plays no role in determining the outcome of an American election," it said.

Meanwhile, the White House punctures are getting more and more panic.

"I don't remember hearing such concern from senior government officials," writes Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, who conducted one of the most exciting interviews of the Trump era in August.

The insiders don't deserve pity.

While Trump's Götterdämmerung is unprecedented in history, when was the last time a US president shook democracy?

But nothing about it is new to Trump, and whoever holds the crowbar for him to this day is not a follower, but an accomplice.

For years, Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has been warning that Trump will “never leave the White House peacefully,” but now he sees himself confirmed: “His fragile ego does not allow him to admit that he lost the election,” Cohen told Vanity Fair".

Trump's niece Mary also indicated something similar in the SPIEGEL conversation in July.

This is not the shrillest episode of the Trump reality show yet.

What is currently happening in the United States does not take place in a vacuum.

Trump can still do a lot of damage.

He is denying his official duties, blocking the seamless handover of business to Joe Biden, ignoring the nearly 323,000 corona deaths, sabotaging financial aid for millions of poor and unemployed people, and downplaying the worst cyberattack on American facilities in decades.

Sectarian of the Week

Icon: enlarge

Denied official duties: Donald Trump

Photo: JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS

At the same time, however, Trump mobilizes, and this is where Jackie Speier's sect analogy comes into play again, an enormous fan base who is ready for anything.

"We scored a landslide victory in this election," he lied as he telephoned a conference of young conservatives.

“Four more years!” They said, although Twitter has long since marked such nonsense with warning labels.

A group of Trump-dependent Republicans want to lodge a last-minute appeal on January 6, if Congress is supposed to approve the election result.

With this they will achieve nothing - except that they turn the routine act into a spectacle, which is the only intention.

Trump is already cheering the telegenic disruptive action and held a council of war with the rebels in the Oval Office on Monday.

Which could arouse the expectation that there will be a turning point at the last minute - or that otherwise they will have to dare to revolt.

(More on this here.)

That is also the reason why I find the comparison with Jim Jones the most concise (minus the massacre).

"When you see the Proud Boys attacking people with a knife and inciting violence, you are frightened," said Jackie Speier, referring to the right-wing extremist group that recently caused unrest in Washington on behalf of Trump.

“This is a political sect.

The other is a religious sect. "

And the difference is also blurred.

About the conservative US media world, in which Fox News is almost too moderate, Trump's disinformation swears an army of millions into the final battle - often with a pseudo-religious touch.

"Jesus is with us," the radio talker Eric Metaxas assured the outgoing president.

Metaxas and Mike Flynn were also the main speakers at the said "protests" in Washington, after which the Proud Boys roamed the streets.

At the climax, Trump hovered over the crowd in the helicopter, hallelujah.

Icon: enlarge

Racist symbol or harmless gesture?

Trump supporters in Washington

Photo: Allison Dinner / imago images / ZUMA Wire

In his instinct for self-preservation, Trump is driving the Republican Party into radicalization - a "descent into madness," warns the conservative commentator Peter Wehner in the "Atlantic," while a research group at Stanford University spoke of dangerous "political sectarianism" as early as October.

In the wake of Trump, security experts fear an even broader "mass radicalization" of America, combined with the growing "risk of right-wing extremist violence."

It flared up more and more under Trump, and it will ferment for a long time after he has cleared the White House.

Escape of the week

Icon: enlarge

Trump's retreat: Mar-a-Lago private club in Palm Beach

Photo: MANDEL NGAN / AFP

When and how exactly this eviction will take place is still open.

In any case, this Wednesday Trump is fleeing to Palm Beach in Florida to spend the holidays in his private club Mar-a-Lago.

Some rumor that he won't even return from there, but will bunker up like "Citizen Kane".

But a permanent residence in Mar-a-Lago could be difficult.

As early as 2016 in Palm Beach, I felt a mood hostile to Trump: "He is nouveau riche and does not belong to us," it was said at the time.

Since then, as president, he has paralyzed local traffic for weeks, which neither improved the local color nor the property prices of this VIP enclave.

Now there are other problems: When converting his property into a member club, Trump is said to have committed himself in 1993 not to use it as a private house, and some of the wealthy neighbors could now apparently sue that.

Most of them do not want a new pilgrimage site for the Trump sectarians in their idyll.

Our US stories of the week

I would like to recommend these stories from my colleagues to you:

  • Ines Zöttl on the inadequate corona aid package from the US Congress;

  • Alexander Sarovic on Trump's increasingly desperate power maneuvers.

I wish you a good week and peaceful holidays!

Heartily

Your Marc Pitzke

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-12-23

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.