▲ Donald Trump supporters a few days ago at a campaign event in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. No one in the US has been able to explain the public’s support for the Republican presidential candidate, who faces several judicial accusations.Photo Afp
l
to presidential race It is still very close and the election promises to be chaos in this case democratic lighthouse of the world. The biggest question about five weeks before the election is how is it possible for there to be a technical tie? Time and time again we try to analyze and understand how a convicted criminal, sexual abuser, businessman guilty of fraud, who says that he will not respect the electoral rules and even that he has attempted a coup d’état, can be tied and has a chance of winning. But maybe it has nothing to do with him.
The reason why many say they will vote for him, despite his sins, is precisely because he does not respect the game, and the game is something that has already fed up with large sectors of the country; Majorities do not have confidence in their government, nor in many of the so-called democratic institutions. It is a democratic game that has long eroded its credibility, promising so much for everyone, only to end up delivering so much to a few. It’s not that complicated: in polls, majorities want good schools, access to medical services, jobs with decent wages, humane management of migration, clean air and water, basic services and functioning infrastructure. In fact, every politician has promised all this only to have them fail to deliver over the years and decades.
Here, in the richest country in history, greed has poisoned almost everything. The last 40 years of neoliberalism practiced by both Republicans and Democrats have left the balance so well known in so many countries that have applied the same recipe. And it all boils down to something very simple: there are a few rich people who are richer than ever, and there are more poor people, or those on the verge of poverty, than ever before. Economic inequality here has never been more extreme in a century since just before the Great Depression.
In the richest country in the world, more than one in eight people (about 47 million) do not have access to enough food for themselves or their families, according to official figures. Billionaires have enjoyed an 88 percent increase in their collective fortune in the last 4 years alone to reach 5 trillion 529 billion. In the richest country in the world, four hedge fund managers earn more than 120,000 kindergarten teachers combined, reports Robert Reich, who concludes: something is terribly wrong.
For millions, this country does not keep its promises, it no longer works. And a presidential candidate says it again and again. That resonates, even though the person saying it is a billionaire whose goal is to make his friends even richer. No one has been able to explain well how it is possible that millions believe him, but it is undoubtedly part of the phenomenon of anger and even madness that generates disillusionment, and of so many lies as well. At the 2016 Republican Convention, when Trump was first crowned the presidential nominee in an election he won, a pair of delegates who were New York lawyers and lifelong centrist Republicans explained to The Day why they were supporting Trump. Of course he is a liar and a man with all kinds of flaws, but we don’t care anymore. We are fed up with the entire political class. He is the bomb that we want to send to Washington to blow up that entire political world..
That hasn’t changed. But it is alarming – although historically not surprising – that this disillusionment finds expression in a dangerous clown with a neo-fascist project. The question here is: where is the alternative? The slogan of the Democratic candidate is: we are not going back to that past that Trump represents, but it also does not offer what is different ahead. For now, largely the bet of anti-Trumpists is that enough will vote against an already well-known evil. It would be offering something like that famous phrase from the great comedic actress Mae West: When I have to choose between two evils, I always prefer the one I haven’t tried yet..
Manu Chao and Willie Nelson. Heaven’s Bad Day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oupiUy4_CcI
