Trump against the United States
In Washington's federal buildings hang three-story-high banners with Donald Trump's grim face. Propaganda funded with public money for the self-glorification of a leader willing to rename any initiative he can: from the (Trump) Kennedy Center, which a judge has ordered to be reversed, to the Donald J. Trump US Institute of Peace – a non-profit organization funded by the United States Congress – or the promised new railway line to be built in a corridor in southern Armenia, which has already been established will be called TRIPP (the English acronym for "Trump Route for Peace and Prosperity"). A few months ago, the Pentagon also announced that it is developing a new fighter jet called F-47, in honor of the 47th president, as well as a new class of battleship named Trump, with an image of the president with his fist raised. And in February, a new online platform was launched to search for and buy prescription drugs at lower prices. It's called TrumpRx.
The franchise president has become omnipresent. The Trump store sells a full line of skincare products, golf equipment, varnishes, blankets, glassware, and coffee makers. From cryptocurrencies to drones, the presidential family's businesses have not stopped growing. The strategy of turning the US presidency into a brand to exploit is accompanied by the pharaonic works of a leader obsessed with his place in the history of a country that he himself has helped to fracture through acceleration and irresponsibility: from the extravagance of a ballroom for a naked emperor to a gargantuan presidential library, designed as a golden glass tower on donated land on the Miami waterfront.
Now this mortar of personal and presidential interests will make Trump's 80th birthday coincide with the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States' independence. Pomp and omnipresence to disguise the weakness of a presidency in crisis due to the undeclared defeat in Iran – which, in the best of cases, could end with a transactional agreement, which probably would not differ much from the agreement that Barak Obama and the European Union already negotiated in 2015–. And also defeated in the pocket of a very important part of his electorate, which suffers the impact of rising prices. And with an increasingly dark electoral horizon for the midterm elections next November: putting out fires in the party and punishing internal insurrections, while more and more Republican candidates are convinced that they will only be able to secure victory if they are able to fish for votes beyond the Trumpist base.
The newspaper New York Times has undertaken the task of reviewing more than a dozen hours of recordings of cabinet meetings to analyze how the Trump administration speaks to the president. The conclusions are ridiculous: on average, at least one in six sentences is flattery to Trump or criticism of his political opponents. One of the most recurring comments in these meetings is the extent to which his leadership is praised as "unparalleled." Cabinet members assure him, in front of the cameras, that he alone is ending global conflicts, winning the race for artificial intelligence, motivating troops to enlist, and reducing gasoline prices. Trump has built an administration dedicated to the constant practice of the art of flattery.
The first time I set foot in Hosni Mubarak's Egypt, in the year 2000, for an EU-Africa summit, the streets of Cairo were full of banners with the president's face. A constant and timeless reminder of the omnipresent and vigilant leader. Authoritarianism resists aging in the collective imagination. Perhaps that is why Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping joked about biotechnology and immortality, as an open microphone captured during their meeting in Beijing for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. In fact, the Russian president has made the anti-aging quest a Kremlin priority. Stephen Miller, Trump's chief ideologue and one of the most influential advisors in the White House, assured a few months ago that the president is "superhuman".
While the United States debates the health of its president and the reasons for his abuses and outbursts, the country's democratic health is increasingly eroded.