The Italian satirical journalist Michele Serra has made a name for himself with this quip: "Americans are very lucky: whenever they go to export freedom to a country, they always find oil." The phrase leaves us with a wistful smile, because it masks a cruel description of a decadent and criminal power. Trump's USA, in coalition with the militaristic government of Israel, and the vassalage of its far-right satellites in Europe and Latin America, has become a global threat. And since they are the most powerful country in what we still call Western civilization, they leave us all, as Catalans and Europeans, in a state of helplessness and bewilderment, observing a geopolitical battlefield where ideas and principles are no longer the focus, but rather a group of unscrupulous old men vying for influence over petty squabbles.
All political scientists are wondering whether Donald Trump's rise to power was the cause or the consequence of the current situation, just as historians have wondered for decades whether Hitler's premature death could have prevented global catastrophe. The personal factor in the course of collective events cannot be underestimated, but I fear that Trumpism is a sign of the times, and that if a sniper were to take him out, the militaristic, jingoistic, and authoritarian drift in the US would remain unchanged, with the added bonus of a martyr who would surely find a place on Mount Rushmore. Trump is a disease of neoliberal capitalism, of American moral decay, of modern media technocracy and its derivative, namely, the trivialization of public opinion, which has eroded the intellectual and ethical bulwarks that, until recently, had the power to short-circuit populism.
Trump was initially a narcissistic and ridiculous figure who embarrassed half of Americans and was ridiculed by comedians in a patronizing manner. After all, we were coming from Obama; we couldn't imagine that the US as a whole had become a madhouse. Today, Trump is a monster capable of spreading death and destruction thoughtlessly, with no interest other than that of his country's extractive elites, and with absolute contempt for international law, human rights, and even a sense of the ridiculous. But the worst part is that his model of behavior has validated all forms of satrapy and immorality in international politics. Neither the United Nations, nor NATO, nor the European Union, as always gripped by nationalism, has been able to stand up to him. The only law of diplomacy is the law of the strongest.
Perhaps some will expect me to severely condemn the Iranian regime, but right now, I simply don't feel like it. I have another task: to denounce Trump's testosterone-fueled policies, which, besides being criminal, are a source of global instability, could lead us into a new recession, and have relegated to the back burner global problems that once seemed urgent, such as the climate crisis, migration, and poverty. The future has become a global issue, and domestic concerns have suddenly become apparent folly. It's still legitimate to worry about housing prices, commuter rail, or the state of the language. The streets fill up on March 8th, September 11th, and whenever teachers or healthcare workers say enough is enough. But it takes much more energy, a kind of unwavering commitment, to mobilize in support of any cause when the entire world, where we are so small and peripheral, seems to have gone mad.
