Donald Trump's United States seems immersed in a dystopian series in which every day there are groups threatened and people with names and surnames who pay a high price for being critical of the American president. In just 24 hours we have seen how the ABC network canceled the series. late show of comedian Jimmy Kimmel, as had been repeatedly requested from the White House, and also how the entire anti-fascist movement in the United States has been threatened with being considered a terrorist organization, which is not an organization in itself but a constellation of groups that are currently in the government's sights as a result of theinfluencer Trumpist Charlie Kirk. These are two measures that pursue the same objective: to intimidate dissidents by using some of its members as Turkish bosses.
Trump's authoritarian drift and the political persecution suffered by his detractors are undermining the pillars of American democracy, which until now had championed a fierce defense of freedom of expression, to the point that burning an American flag is not considered a crime, but an act. The American president has even allowed himself the luxury of expelling an Australian network from covering his visit to the United Kingdom because he didn't like a question from one of its reporters. These are intolerable behaviors in a democracy, but they Trump has normalized in a strategy that is giving him, so far, good results.
Trump's main lever to achieve his goals is the economy. This is what he is doing with universities, businesses, and now also with the media, such as the Disney-owned ABC network, which is awaiting the administration's allocation of various stations. And with anyone who doesn't comply with his wishes, Trump sets his powerful legal machinery in motion, as has happened with the New York Times, whom he has sued for defamation.
The paradox of this anti-democratic offensive is that it is being carried out, precisely, in the name of freedom of expression. This is one of the characteristics of this new ultraconservative populism, which on the one hand claims to defend freedom and on the other to stifle any possibility of disagreement with what they consider normal and common sense. And to achieve this, they do not renounce the use of force or its public display, as is the case with the deployment of the National Guard in Washington.
The result of all this is a fearful society, with entire groups, such as LGBTI people and immigrants, subjected to enormous social and police pressure. People are afraid to demonstrate or make critical comments about Israel for fear of being considered a terrorist suspect. This stifling atmosphere of restricted rights increasingly resembles that of a dictatorship like the one we all imagine, rather than that of a supposedly world-leading democracy.
