The last half decade has seen remarkable changes in governance in several liberal democracies. There has been a throw back to old style nationalism, isolationism and prejudice headed by cult leaders in a movement labelled populism. Regardless of populist governments’ efforts, the world has become more and more interconnected in a phenomenon known as globalism. Just in case there isn’t enough change in the world order there is deadly coronavirus pandemic, emanating from the new world power China that has devastated the world.
America’s Trump's lack of international leadership on the home front has also been sorely tested. Trump has done nothing to prevent the resurgence of racial tensions as a result of yet another death of an unarmed black suspect at the hands of the police.
Facing the challenges in this watershed in history are the new cult leaders who are committed to go it alone in a world where all the traditional boundaries have been breached and globalism is the de facto manner of how the world is interacting and solving its problems. The leader of this infant movement, Donald J. Trump, is the most powerful figure on the planet by virtue of the fact that America has headed the liberal democracy value system since the Second World War, has a humungous economy and a dominant military arsenal. Trump’s vision represents a hundred and eighty degree negation of the current dominant world order and the American ethos. Hence the outcome of the 2020 American Presidential election has ramifications far and beyond its borders.
It is useful to assess the emergence of the liberal democratic nation state and why it is being challenged by an isolationist authoritarian xenophobic extreme nationalistic model. This especially so when the problems facing the planet require global cooperation.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY - THE NATION STATE AND THE COMPETING IDEOLOGIES
The twentieth century was the age of the nation state. There were two world wars where tens of millions died to fight for a flag. In the first world war approximately twenty million died and thirty years later the ante was upped to sixty million. Overlapping the nations state battle was the ideological struggle between fascist, communist and liberal democracy models. This struggle ended in the second half of the millennium. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 Francis Fukuyama, the celebrated political scientist, declared the “End of History”. He argued that liberal democracies with their free market economies, rule of law and their accountable and representative governments had won the ideological struggle. Liberal democracy was accompanied by remarkable improvements in longevity, the lifting out of billions from poverty and improvements of standards of living and education. More are dying today from overeating than undereating. However the trade off for freedom for inequality had begun to become more and more inequitable in many quarters.
INEQUITIES IN THE LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES EXPLOITED BY AUTHORITARIAN POPULISTS
What is often forgotten is that Fukuyama warned that there was risk in these democracies of “political decay”. Populism is an outcome of that decay. While Fukuyama in 1989 could never have envisioned the dramatic expansion and interconnection of the world encapsulated by globalism, he did foresee the danger inherent in democracies where inequities and the loss of dignity of groups could loom large.
Much has happened since 1989 as several of the “winners” have failed their societies while a new powerful factor, globalism, has emerged. One of the inbuilt defects of the liberal democracy was the sacrifice of equality for freedom. With the dramatic advancements in economies the “elites” lost more and more contact with those less privileged and as the world became the stage corporate leaders could transfer their plants to where the cheapest labor could be found. Industrial and factory workers lost their jobs and with environmental concerns miners were retrenched. Wealth became more and more concentrated in the urban areas and the rural populace felt more and more abandoned.
A growing class of the population began to feel like strangers in their own country. In addition there was deep resentment of the foreigner and the immigrant. All this and more brought out resentment some of which was transformed into xenophobia and racism. In the United Kingdom it spawned Brexit. In America Donald Trump promised to make America Great Again, which was code for keeping it white.
The new supposed defenders of the disadvantaged were not only racists they were wildly autocratic, equated loyalty to the State with loyalty to them and strove to create cult like followings. Nowhere was this more evident in the United States. Nowhere was it more consequential as the United States had been the leader of the “free world” for nearly a century and now they were bailing out. Trump was abandoning as many of his international ties as he could. In the age of globalism he was resorting to isolationism.
A GLOBAL TREND WAS ACCELERATING WITH THE EMERGENCE OF ISOLATIONIST POPULISM
Neverthe less the new overriding wave of how societies and nations related to one another was assuming more and more importance in the third millennium. A mind blowing increase in trade and travel together with the digital age nations became more and more interconnected.
The world had changed in nano time. In thirty years the international corperations became almost as important as the nation state. Problems that threatened the survival of the planet and were no longer easily remediable by nation states. These challenges included climate change, colossal financial inequities, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, hordes of immigrants, privacy of data and now as the coronavirus has proved, disease that knows no national borders or ideological differences.
The world had changed in nano time. In thirty years the international corperations became almost as important as the nation state. Problems that threatened the survival of the planet and were no longer easily remediable by nation states. These challenges included climate change, colossal financial inequities, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, hordes of immigrants, privacy of data and now as the coronavirus has proved, disease that knows no national borders or ideological differences.
HOW THE CULT LEADERS OBTAINED AND MAINTAIN THEIR SUPPORT
While there have been different emphases by leaders depending on their personalities and their situations generally they have garnered as much power as possible arguing that as they were elected by the people, legislatures, the bureaucratic institutions and even the judiciary could not override their decisions. They have focussed on the tribalism race or ethnicity that they believe represent the true inheritors of their respective nations. Immigrants are taboo. The only affinity they show to those outside the confines of their countries are likeminded leaders. The leaders play up the danger to their following of globalism and having to bow down to the agenda of the outside world.
On a day to day basis they create an alternative reality. They recognize no legitimate opposition only conspiracies against their leadership. The media is biased and is in cahoots with the establishment and institutions who wish to maintain privilege for the old elite. They are able to spin any and everything. In America while Trump has had notable defections his base has hung tight. By and large he is able to keep divering attention to a new issue as his phony “ideology" unravels. Trump by his taking over the Republican base keeps the Congress representatives in line. So he held onto control by lies, diversion and fear.
And then came the virus.
YOU CAN SPIN EVERYTHING BUT HOW FAR CAN YOU SPIN A VIRUS?
It is ironic that this microscopic unseen enemy would finally change the narrative.
Trump the greatest propagandist since the second world war had thus far spun every situation to his ersatz reality. His cult agreed that there was no such problem as climate change, coal was lovable, that experts were part of the dark state and the Federal Government was loaded with freeloaders especially scientists so he dumped them. His gut could solve everything, he could bring back mining, factories and on and on. He would drain the swamp of corruption in Washington. With regard to the Russian, Ukrainian and impeachment scandals, they were all hoaxes perpetrated by the Democrats and their fake news media to keep the power in the hands of the elite and on and on.
With all this success he set about spinning the virus as blown up propaganda by the usual suspects to smear him. First there would be no cases as he could keep it out by banning flights from China, then Europe and now Brazil. Then he made his spiel to the Republicans as he spun this as the virus of only the Democratic States. He needed a vaccine but refused to join the international movement to create one rather he financed the UK Oxford group with nearly a quarter of a million dollars to supply the USA directly.
If Trump haven’t got the message the pharmaceutical companies that he was relying to produce the vaccine have. They were talking about billions of vials as they knew that this was a global problem that could only be solved globally. They were co coordinating with the World Health Organization as they were the only body which had information and contact with every medical system in the world.
THE POPULIST MOVEMENT THEIR LEADERS AND THE VIRUS
It hasn’t passed unnoticed that the “Only I can save you” collection of populist leaders countries lead the world in deaths from the coronavirus. As might be expected way ahead by far was the USA with over a hundred thousand that have succumbed. Trump was living up to his reputation of being the greatest the world has even seen. America under his management has suffered one third of the world’s deaths with less than five percent of the world’s population America had the highest number of deaths in actual number and per capita. .
A distant second on this grotesque list is his newest best friend from Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro with close on half a million recorded cases. Third in line is his oldest newest best friend Russia's Vladmir Putin and fourth with over a quarter million positives is his somewhat best friend, UK's Boris Johnson . Two other members of the club that made up the top ten highest death rates were fellow populists, Prime Minister Modi from India and Premier Erdogan from Turkey.
WHAT COMES NEXT?
Just in case no one noticed, for the moment, the coronavirus is a Northern Hemisphere problem. While it has hit the South, where it has been largely contained, it has been summer there. While the epidemiologists discuss the likelihood of a second wave in the USA in the autumn and winter of 2020/2021 what is glossed over is the possibility of a major pandemic in the Southern Hemisphere in their autumn and winter starting now. The areas most at risk are the poverty stricken African and South American countries where the virus will wreak havoc. Their health services there are non existent.
Trump’s response thus far has been to withdraw the USA from the WHO which is the only body with some know how for those regions. He will then pretend that what happens there cannot impact America. He will stick to his modified wall theory and belatedly ban all flights from countries like Kenya and Guatemala. He might suddenly awaken to the realization that the answer to the Southern threat is health care aid - maybe he will send them the swabs that he denied the fifty American States.
If by a miracle the major efforts of nearly a half a dozen major pharmaceutical companies to produce a billion vaccines each materializes, he will claim the credit. He will say that he has been a globalist all along and rejoin the WHO now that they have stopped being a lackey of China.
MEAN WHILE
Meanwhile the role of comforter in chief is being filled by the Democratic Challenger to Trump’s Presidency, Joe Biden. He empathized with the families and friends of the coronavirus victims while Trump golfed. He then reflected the nation’s torment with the not as yet resolved disregard of black lives while Trump threatened to shoot the enraged unrestrained angry protesting multi racial mob. As Biden clarified, “The words of a President matter”. He, Biden, would take the lead to change the culture whereby the good cops would no longer stand by while the bad cops exhibited their brutality.
AS FOR THE WAR ON THE VIRUS HOAX
Trump is losing the war on spinning the virus as not being a problem. Not only do the sickening numbers bear evidence to his cavalier attitude to this agent of death but even his whacko machismo of not wearing a mask as a political statement approach is backfiring. Close on eighty percent of Americans favor wearing masks in public. And when the loudest bell ringer in his echo chamber, Fox News host Sean Hannity chastised revellers for not wearing masks as what they might do to their parents and grandparents maybe even Trump should just call it quits and claim that he recommended it all the time.
AS FOR THE IDEOLOGICAL WAR OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY V POPULIST AUTHORITARIANISM ….
History may well reflect that a virus which produced untold plastic bodybags stacked in refrigerated containers as the morgues were crammed full, exposed the narcissism, prejudice and impotence, of those who propagated this modified fascist cult.
The answer to some of the shortfalls of liberal democracies is to reform them and heavens knows there is plenty of room for that in the USA. The answer to the problems facing the world from climate change to the coronavirus is global cooperation on a scale not as yet envisaged. Hopefully history will also reflect on the period that we have all are living through as an aberration and a narrow escape from descending into the hell of totalitarianism and isolationism.
The answer to some of the shortfalls of liberal democracies is to reform them and heavens knows there is plenty of room for that in the USA. The answer to the problems facing the world from climate change to the coronavirus is global cooperation on a scale not as yet envisaged. Hopefully history will also reflect on the period that we have all are living through as an aberration and a narrow escape from descending into the hell of totalitarianism and isolationism.
VIRUS TRAGEDY COMPOUNDED BY ALLEGED POLICE MURDER OF UNARMED BLACK SUSPECT AND THE ENSUING UPROAR
Trump’s dark inaugural address described an out of control America wracked with crime. Ironically America had witnessed a half century of a decrease in violence. As he approaches what he hopes will be his second inaugural his “Great America” is burning and he is cheering it on. Even though he claimed to be the Law and Order President when none was needed, he has no idea, with forty million unemployed, with inequities rampant in the minority groups and an out of control pandemic ravaging the nation, that his obscene attempt to spin the outrage following a videotaped murder of a black man by a rogue white cop, is not a winning election strategy. It will however rally his base.
The looters and arsonists would well take heed of the Black Mayor of Atlanta and mother of four, Keisha Bottoms's passionate empathetic plea to those who believe that this behavior helps their cause. It adds fuel to the racist populist fire that was first lit by the Presidential incumbent. The black LGBT Mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot was less empathetic expressing disgust at the behavior of the rioters when declaring a curfew of downtown Chicago.
There are never any winners in a tragedy that the nation has literally just witnessed. The underlying narrative remains the same. None of this honors the memory of one George Floyd who was cold bloodedly savaged to death by a supposed protector of his rights while his police colleagues stood by and watched. G-d knows what they could have been thinking.
TRUMP REMAINS PREDICTABLE IN FACE OF TRAGEDY.
One always knows what the POTUS is thinking. Rather than bring calm to the nation he is calling for his MAGA fans and the military. He left the management of the virus to the Mayors and the Governors but as "a wartime leader" he is in charge of the cavalry. He will manage the battle from the WhiteHouse without a mask to show how brave he is.
David Gergen that insightful conservative commentator who has been an advisor to five Presidents lamented, “It is a sad week for America, Trump has fled from his duty….he was mostly busy with other things getting into a public fight with Twitter, condemning China over Hong Kong and terminating our relationship with the WHO”. Gergen added that Trump’s contribution to the tragedy that hit the nation in Minneapolis and its aftermath resulted in a stream of inappropriate inflammatory tweets including that “The only good Democrat was a dead Democrat”.
To be continued.....
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