Of populism and confusion in the United States that crowns Donald Trump

The electoral scenario in the USA is confusing. Former President Donald Trump, who cannot exhibit wise previous management, easily imposes himself, I am almost involved a hundred serious judicial cases and which has seriously derailed with the management of the pandemic.

However, Joe Biden’s figure is weakening despite closing his government with a series of important results in the management of the economy, in the growth of the country and in the international leadership that the USA had lost. Disconcerting. One explanation is that it is Biden who loses and not Trump who wins. The tycoon maintains the same political strength, that of his opponent falls.

The possible motivation for this process is frustration. People don’t like either of them and between the two they choose the one who shows more charisma and a presumptuous and salvific populist speech that Biden finds difficult to formulate.

The Democrat defeated Trump in the last elections with the combination of two factors: a certain usury on the part of the tycoon and enormous help from the economic multinationals who feared, today they fear, that a new mandate for the Republican bring down the credit and reputation of the United States.

Trump’s insularity does not excite the establishment. This vision is what is reflected in the editorial of The New York Times, an icon of traditional American power, released after Trump’s devastating victory on Super Tuesday. “A tragedy for the Republican Party and for the country” defined.

“Contempt for the Constitution”

He added that a person is chosen “at the expense of everything, including integrity, principles, politics and patriotism. As an individual, Trump has demonstrated a violation of the Constitution and the rule of law “which makes him incapable of holding office.” By the way, he also alludes to the need to support Ukraine and not lean on Russia, as the former president said.

There remains a key that explains this consequence the economyas Bill Clinton’s team has argued in the past with the added emphasis of stupid to make it clear to Republicans why people rejected them after the reagonomic.

Today there is a general perception that things are getting worse and not better, even though the numbers are accumulating in the opposite direction. “A combination of strong growth, unemployment near its lowest level in 50 years and falling inflation”, lists Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. This, however, is not the opinion of many ordinary Americans.

If you consult ordinary middle class people who prefer Trump, they highlight a contradiction between macrodata and experience On a daily level, an opinion that adds to the collapse of citizens’ trust in institutions, a problem that is spreading throughout the world.

In this sense, as we will see later, Trump is the emergent of a global nationalist trend which is growing fueled by a fundamental fact: the concentration of income which places the old middle classes on the margins, outside of distribution.

An Argentine economist who graduated from UBA, Rafael Ch., who lived in the United States for three decades where he could not practice and had to work as a truck driver, is a Republican sympathizer and a harsh critic of the system. He managed to raise his family “break your back”, describes this column. One son is an engineer, the other an accountant.

In his opinion, what is happening is that “more than half of citizens see Trump as someone outside the political mafia it doesn’t need corruption make money. He is the vindicator of American honor and pride, the defender of the middle class, a madman respected by the other madmen who run the world today.

The lawsuits against the former president don’t hurt him because, he says, “the citizen feels it justice is usedthe media and the institutions to get him out of the way so that both Democrats and Republicans can continue to do their business.”

What happens to the economy at that level? He argues that “it is true that the unemployment rate is low. But it doesn’t include people who I’m already out of the system. As you know, a worker who loses his job can collect unemployment insurance for a limited period, after which, if he does not re-enter the workforce, he disappears from the system and is no longer considered unemployed. The 14 million jobs created are low-paid jobs that do not require secondary or vocational training. Finally a job.”

Inflation has fallen, he acknowledges, but “it was caused by the tremendous increase in interest rates applied by the Federal Reserve to dry up the supply of liquidity. Today that interest is 4.25/5.50. In the Trump era they were 0%”.

“Despite this, the expected levels of inflation deceleration have not been achieved. Mortgage interest rates are at 6 or 7% (in the Trump era, 2.5%), which has produced a sales block in the real estate market with the consequent halt in construction,” he says.

Inflation in the changuito

And he concludes: “I measure inflation every Sunday”. when I go to the supermarket with my wife. Products that increased by 15 to 20%. We buyers, who have filled our carts, now look at them, compare and put them back on the shelf. The shopping lists were reduced to the bare minimum, not to mention the drugs that every government since I have lived here for more than 30 years has promised to make accessible but it has never happened.”

This vision includes a shift, highly visible among these Republicans, from respect for the press, which is seen as part of a policy of independence harmful army of political activists, and justice, which is described as part of widespread corruption.

This enormous frustration with the system, certainly exaggerated, is the basis of a global phenomenon that has expanded hand in hand with the economic crisis that produced that situation. perverse effect of concentration and social exclusion which we highlighted earlier.

The political consequence is a refuge from modernity with the establishment of political groups that build messianic leadershipthey repudiate globalization because of their contempt for multilateralism, they cling to fanatical forms of religion, authoritarianism and xenophobia, and they admire authoritarian models.

Coincidentally, Trump’s domestic victory coincides with the election in which Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin, having overthrown all opposition, in the full and literal sense of the term, will seek a fifth term next week.

This process of consolidation of “national conservatism” will be even more visible in the legislative elections of the European bloc in June. Ultramontanes like former Trump advisor Steve Bannon say that “just as in June 2016, when the Brexit vote anticipated Trump’s victory in November, the European parliamentary elections in June this year herald a great result landslide victory for the populist movement in the United States.”

They are not liberals, just as the tycoon is not. Rather, it’s an army he despises those republican artifacts arrived from the French Revolution and North American independence. In this they are similar to the populists of the other front.

Let’s remember the devaluation of Cristina Kirchner the division of powers as an outdated legacy of “when electric light didn’t exist”. Or Trump, with an admiration close to envy when he learned that his Chinese colleague Xi Jinping was perpetuating himself in power. The Republican had also spoken of third terms despite the constitutional limits.

Biden is convinced that these specters are what Americans They will end up exorcising in November. Maybe now with the support of moderate Republicans who blessed the fighter Nikki Haley. We will see. Nothing is written beyond confusion.

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