Fear of ourselves

Za "Time" from New York

The only part of New York with mobile homes is on Staten Island, where it is Donald tramp convincingly won Kamal Harris, but these dilapidated settlements are more and more lined up next to the weekend roads to the north of the country. Why the Democrats lost power is more than clear to those who live in prefab buildings on deserted ice because they can no longer pay for apartments in the cities, but the answer of a huge number of others to the question - are you better off than four years ago - scared many, because it became obvious that the Republican leader, in whom many see the solution to their problems, is no social anomaly or passing phenomenon, as it seemed when, defeated and isolated, he left the White House at the end of his previous term. Most of America is Donald Trump.

Trump, as he is, with announcements of a one-day dictatorship, historic deportations of immigrants and massive tariffs on imported goods, 34 felony convictions, a sexual assault conviction and lawsuits for obstructing the transfer of power, attempting to overturn the election results and illegal retention of confidential documents, with racist rhetoric about "genetic predisposition to crimes" and xenophobic stories about "human animals", with threats of imprisonment to political opponents, misogynistic comments about women and incitement of supporters to shoot journalists.

Angry and bitter that they live worse, and that the country, in their opinion, is going in the wrong direction, the voters believed that those who Donald Trump pointed the finger at were responsible for their problems, because he constantly said that it was not their fault but someone else's. to the other: "deep state", "Washington swamp", "corrupt elites", "swindlers in power", "immigrants", "media"... Citizens are harmed, he said, because they someone is taking advantage. That's why they voted against the Democrats.

Now that all the levers of power are in Trump's hands, the people of America are left to wonder what this choice says about themselves. If he is the best political leader, what kind of country is it?

MULTI-ETHNIC REPUBLICANISM

For the first time in twenty years, Republicans won the majority of votes at the state level, removing potential complaints about the unfairness of the electoral system used to elect the US president. About one million votes remain to be counted in the west of the country, but it is more than obvious that Trump achieved a much better result than in 2020, both in traditionally "republican" and "democratic" states.

The Republican Party is also doing better in places where it was never popular, such as the state of New York, and after the results from Arizona, it is clear that they won in all seven "swing" states - Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nevada. Republicans have taken over the majority in the Senate, where they will have 52 seats, and are on track to maintain dominance in the House of Representatives. Although Trump's core electoral base remains non-college-educated whites, early analyzes show that no Republican candidate has won more African-American and Latino votes in the past five decades, and more young people voted for him than ever before, including those who they are going to the polls for the first time. Regardless of Trump's stories about "genes", "rapists from Mexico" or "bad parts of cities", with allusions to African Americans who, due to discrimination, are often forced to live in poor neighborhoods, the Trump movement is much more multi-ethnic than ever before.

The African-American population is reluctant to talk about what they often face, the problem of racial inequality in the US is hidden from the rest of the world, but many of them will tell you that they have experienced various types of discrimination many times in their lives: in school, in traffic, at work or on the street. Even so, it may happen that, while waiting together at a public laundromat, which is one of the peculiarities of the American way of life along with the sale of bagged ice or chapels in car trailers, you hear how they voted for Trump. If you ask how they can be for one whose supporters carry Confederate flags on their cars, which allude to the time of slavery, they will tell you that they feel that a considerable number of the white population have the same opinion about them, but that some of them do not speak publicly what they think. because it pretends. There is no dilemma with those who do not pretend.

These days, African-Americans are getting a message on their phones that looks like the letters they receive after applying for a new job. "Congratulations," it says at the beginning, "you have been chosen to pick cotton on the plantation." Please be ready to leave your home on November 24, 2024, we will pick you up at eight in the morning in a white van.” Wishing the recipients of the message a nice rest of the day, the signature reads "Trump's supporters".

Of course, the message could have been sent by anyone, spreading hatred in virtual reality costs nothing, there are not many people who would approach someone on the street and hand them a piece of paper with this text, but all this shows how far things have gone. The problems of the economy, borders and national security hurt more than the discomfort of ethnic minorities having to be on the same side as those who hate others because of the color of their skin.

At the same time, the economy is not some abstract story about inflationary movements, the level of interest rates of the Federal Reserve or the Dow Jones stock index. The economy for American citizens primarily means - whether the check that arrives on Friday can cover what they paid on the credit card the previous Saturday, whether they can afford an apartment in a more decent part of New York, or whether they have to live next to the swamp on Staten Island, in cheap houses with plastic sheeting leaning on each other, or somewhere up north above Delhi, where they walk around the fields with a mobile phone in hand, looking for a place where a mobile signal will appear Verizon.

A DEFEAT BIGGER THAN A MISTAKE

photo: ap photo

During this time, the Democratic Party is trying to consolidate itself after a heavy defeat. The mistakes are known - Joseph Biden's promises to be a bridge to a new generation turned into his insistence that he could beat Trump, which led to the Democrats not having a normal procedure for choosing a presidential candidate, and Kamala Harris being pushed into the campaign without enough time to present herself to the voters, with her persistent refusal to distance herself from the unpopular administration, and the confused message about the danger to democracy and "Trump's fascism". All this happened while 70 percent of voters repeat that the country is on the wrong path, and half say that they live worse than four years ago, thus making the defeat of the Democrats much more difficult than anything they did not do differently during the campaign.

A party which, by the nature of things, would have to be on the side of the oppressed and disenfranchised has turned into a political party of the well-to-do who have lost all connection with the workers. It was enough for the party strategists to see that the song "Rich North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony, which was recorded with his amateur camera in the company of two dogs and somewhere in the woods of Virginia, already has 175 million views on YouTube, and that from that city, where it is done for a "miserable salary", Washington, where those "who control the country" live, can be reached by car in two hours, so that they can think about what kind of messages they should send voters.

Even those who are decidedly progressive, like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, believe that "identity politics" has ignored the fact that the majority of people in the country belong to the working class, so that the trend of leaving the Democratic Party began with "whites and continued with African Americans and Latin Americans".

"It shouldn't surprise us that the Democratic Party, which has abandoned the working class, has seen the working class abandon it," writes Sanders.

Julie Roginski, one of the main strategists of the Democratic Party, recently told CNN that "Democrats did not know how to communicate with voters" and that instead of life issues, they addressed Latin Americans with politically correct, non-binary, Latin(x) names, such as would avoid the gender prejudice found in the names Latin(o) or Latin(a).

"It's like we're living on another planet," Roginski described.

Many will say that voters are manipulated by social media and that there is a difference between their perception and objective parameters, be it inflation, prices or unemployment. Manipulation exists and always has, but people are far more hurt by the fact that the rent for a one-bedroom apartment in New York is three or four thousand dollars a month than they are happy that gender-neutral signs are placed on public toilets. It's not about what's written on the door, it's about priorities. For the majority of voters, it is more important how they live, then where other needs are met. Who cares more about the latter, bujrum, the world is a field of endless freedom, but it will soon be seen if changes in society can be achieved with minorities or if the rough hands of the working class will be needed again.

Many political scientists believe that the Democratic Party has gone to the right on economic issues, leaving workers and the middle class to survive in neoliberal capitalism, where both people and goods are on the market, while on social issues they have made a step towards the progressive left. By doing so, they caused a double frustration of those who, by the nature of things, would have to be their electoral base. The price was paid, they turned to Trump who promised to fix that too.

HOPE FOR HOPE

As the future head of the White House assembles aides, which began with the appointment of Susie Wiles as his chief of staff and continued with the selection of Elise Stefanik as the US ambassador to the UN, Stephen Miller as the deputy for policy, and Tom Homan for the border issue, everyone is looking forward to the first day of his presidency. mandate, considering the repetitions during the campaign - "promise given, promise fulfilled".

A lot has been promised. In the first place, closing the border and "drill, baby drill", which should mean the release of the energy potential of the country, regardless of the fact that oil production has already reached the highest rate in the same USA. Immediately after that, the deportation of illegal immigrants, stopping the war in Ukraine and Gaza, tariffs of 60 percent on the import of goods from China, the cancellation of diversity, equality and inclusion programs in government institutions, but essentially nothing is known about how Trump will implement his promises. because numerous administrative and institutional obstacles stand in the way. In the background of everything, "Project 2025" is still waiting, with detailed plans for how the "conservatives" should save the country from the "clutches of the radical left". But as much as Trump's MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement is associated with this extremist agenda of his former associates, he himself has never been a soldier of any ideology. He is himself. His political style is populist demagoguery and words that people like to hear. At the same time, the newly elected president is usually as angry as those who voted for him, and in anger, things are often said that are never done. Trump's key message remains change, while invoking past times.

Perhaps that future, laced with a nostalgic past, will help bring those who live in trailer parks without shops, schools or subways back to their parts of town in Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx, where they were born and raised. However, many things have changed irrevocably in the meantime, they will certainly not be able to go to Manhattan anymore, that part of the city has been permanently occupied by those who travel on weekends by private planes to the Caribbean islands and do not know that on the desolate icelands north of New York there are dilapidated settlements next to which, when go on vacation, those who are not forced to live in such places pass by happy and cheerful.