A broken quarter of a century and Trump’s smile

In a present with the challenge of two major wars underway and possible expansion, other latent ones, the social and economic effects of the pandemic still present and globalization distorted as a result of protectionism and nationalism, it is foreseeable that normality will be reduced to a return to basic things: food, energy, security.

Challenges that in modernity should have been resolved or along that path. Absolutely. To some extent there is an echo of the beginning of the last century. As the World Economic Forum points out, this paved path coincides with a global landscape of low growth, low investment, poor cooperation and potential deterioration of human development and the sense of justice and democracy. Naturally, leadership is affected by these distortions. They are not abstract, They respond to time.

Donald Trump clearly bears witness to this panorama. With a plot architecture simple and precarious, but effective, it connects with those opacities. The sometimes exaggerated debate among analysts on the reasons for the success of the tycoon’s electoral career, confirmed this week in the Republican race in Iowa, sometimes loses sight of the context that makes it possible.

The former president was never an outsider, another repeated confusion. He came into his first term in the midst of a decline in the United States, with much of the population exhausted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the crisis that devastated the lower and middle class in the late 2000s during Republican rule. Hurt people who were not helped by the next democratic chapter.

All these events describe this tumultuous quarter of a century marked globally by the failure of George W. Bush’s imperial policies at the turn of the century and Trump’s illiberal isolationism thereafter. The periods of Barack Obama and Joe Biden would seem to be episodes of an already traced and decadent path.

With that basic naturalness, the return of the tycoon now takes place a frustrated power which experiences a decrease in its structural power, which analysts summarize as the inability to achieve the desired results. Biden, with his re-electoral obsession despite his advanced age and total absence of charisma, is another reflection of that distortion. That vanity would not have occurred under different circumstances.

Attributes of a hegemonic power

It is important to delve deeper into this aspect. Portuguese political scientist Pedro Emanuel Mendes lists it three essential attributes in a hegemonic power: exceptional material and political ability, which gives him the possibility of inventing the rules of the game; the will to lead order and enforce the rules; and, finally, have consensual leadership based on the indisputable primacy of social capital in the international system.

This hegemonic power relationship must have the consent of international actors. “Hegemony must be accepted and not contested” holds. A quality under discussion at this stage.

An anecdote from 2018 helps to understand what these topics are about. That year, Trump got the message before the United Nations. There he said: “Today I stand before the General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress we have made; in less than two years, “My administration has made more progress than any other government in the history of our country.”. A cruel laugh immediately broke out in the room, involving diplomats and leaders.

A clear and unprecedented reaction to the damage Trump has inflicted on the image of the United States and the decline of power that explains much of this flawed quarter century. JFKennedy summed up the importance of these areas dramatically: “Domestic politics can only defeat us,” he said, “but foreign policy it can kill us”, recalls the American political scientist Aaron Wildavsky.

Mendes observes that these defects arise both from the natural complexity of change processes, but, more relevantly, from the erosion of the liberal order due to the crisis of legitimacy experienced by the leadership of the hegemonic power. In this sense, Trump was the greatest challenger, after the Second World War, to the liberal order, which Obama helped to rebuild after Bush’s failed experience.

Trump is a consequence of history. It’s there because something happened before. But it’s not new either. Let us not forget that power only became involved in that great war after Pearl Harbor. The motto of the New York tycoon “America First”, was originally created by isolationists who opposed US involvement in the battle against fascism. Those who, in besieged London, pointed out to Churchill that they understood his anguish, but that he would have to be patient. And resignation.

Protectionism is nothing new either. neonationalist which this former president inaugurates with intensity and which Joe Biden continues with similar emphasis, albeit with other prolixity. In the Republican area there has been and continues to be a distance in the discussion on the democratic breath which instead characterizes the rhetoric of the current White House.

It is clear that damaging these ideals poses risks to the security of all, political and economic, although this is a frequent flaw in the system that the United States has many invoices to explain. But it is conclusive that as autocracies and repressive models increase, treaties and alliances fail, the planet becomes unstable, the right is imposed on force and conflicts multiply. Trump gives less importance to these deviations. They happen inside A There of others.

The monstrosity against Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is one of the monstrosities that has leaked through those cracks of leadership and lack of balance. This medieval Russian conflict cannot be prevented and is difficult to neutralize, but if the score were to fall in Moscow’s favor it would confirm the American blackout although there is exactly no light on the alternatives. As highlighted again by World Economic Forumwe are faced with a panorama of fragilities that seem completely new, but at the same time intensely familiar.

Switzerland is an unexpected example of such regressive trends. For the first time it relaunches the need to control foreign direct investment to regulate competition. The same protectionism in the European Union goes so far as to criticize inflation-reducing policies in the United States because they include tax credits and subsidies for green technologies.

It is unclear whether Trump will defeat Biden in November, although everything is pointing in that direction. If that happened there would be more than just complaints. The current administration would end up with a goal encouraged by Republicans, namely greater industrialization of the United States, easing its dependence on a globalized world that was previously celebrated as a brilliant contemporary achievement.

Just a nuance. Trump, back in the White House, would turn the oceans surrounding his country into walls. THE BBCFor example, he cites two close collaborators of the ambitious tycoon who confirm that the first step will take place withdraw the United States from NATO paralyzing the Western Alliance. An unnecessary expense, he claims.

A point that in other circumstances would even be debatable. But in this present, will release dark tendencies which are already much more than evident. Europeans “are right to be anxious,” acknowledges Senator Chris Coons of the House Foreign Relations Committee. They’re not the only ones.

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