The main Western superpower is once again in the hands of an unpredictable person, without complexes and with a reactionary agenda. Donald Trump not only won the elections, he managed to assert himself in an open cultural battle that is currently taking place in the world, closely linked to the way in which the consequences of climate change are managed, to the way in which taken care of the losers of globalization and the attitude to adopt. the face of feminist progress.
“Democrats governed for four years on an ‘everything is fine’ basis and they went into the election with a ‘no change’ plan and that’s what happened,” reflects lead researcher Michael Galant at the Center for Economic and Social Studies. Research. Politics (CEPR), in Washington, DC: “Even though this is Trump’s last term, for anyone who has doubts about the Republican Party, the shift to the far right has proven to be a strategy winning. »
“Unfortunately,” Galant continues, “I don’t think Democrats will learn their lesson either, and I think they’ll bet on ‘let’s move further to the right to take the space granted by mainstream anti-Trump Republicans.’ .
Texas Democratic congressman Greg Casar, member of the most progressive caucus on Capitol Hill, insisted in an interview on elDiario.es: “If the Democratic Party does not create another narrative in which it is said that the big banks of Wall Street and the big ones It is the companies that cause the price rise and the wages of workers in the United States are not increasing enough, so Trump’s speech is left aside. After this election, we can no longer be a Democratic party without a clear vision that we are the party of the working and middle class of this country.”
Indeed, looking at voter profile data, Tuesday’s result is the worst showing for Democrats among the lower classes (households with incomes below $30,000 per year) in two decades. . Households with incomes between $30,000 and $50,000, as well as between $50,000 and $100,000, mostly went for Trump. And what’s happening among the highest income voters? In homes worth between $100,000 and $200,000, the Democratic Party won with 53% of the vote (in 2020, however, Trump won) and the same was true for incomes over $200,000, which increased by 52% for Harris.
“It is no surprise that a Democratic Party that has abandoned the working class will find that the working class has abandoned it,” Bernie Sanders wrote after the election: “While Democratic leaders defend the status quo, the people American is angry. » and wants a change. And he’s right.
Thus, Donald Trump won thanks to the votes of the working poor, climate change deniers and reactionaries to feminism; Trump has shown himself to be stronger than Harris in social sectors supposedly aligned with progressivism and that the Democratic Party took for granted, such as the poorest classes or certain ethnic minorities, and has managed to defeat those who run with a agenda based on diversity. , reproductive rights and the environment.
The programmatic manifesto of the future president says this:: in his chapter in response to the fight against heteropatriarchy and the denunciation of white domination: “Cut federal funding to any school that promotes critical race theory, radical gender ideology and other racial content, inappropriate sexual or political behavior for our children. » . “Keep men out of women’s sports. »
And to help him carry out this agenda, Trump decided that Susie Wiles would be his future chief of staff, a powerful position in the White House: “Susie Wiles just helped me win one of the greatest victories policies in American history, and was an integral part of my successful 2016 and 2020 campaigns… Susie is tough, smart, innovative and is universally admired and respected. Susie will continue to work tirelessly to make America great again. “It is a well-deserved honor to have Susie as the first female chief of staff in American history.” Wiles is a seasoned political operative who is seen as a fundamental part of Trump’s election victory.
New World
The world that opens on January 20 will have someone in the White House who said he would leave NATO allies to their fate if they didn’t pay the bills; who has admitted to having good relations with Putin, and who has good relations with those closest to the Russian president in Europe, such as the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, with whom he spoke shortly after his victory in the elections.
“He is a courageous person,” Putin said after learning the election result, referring to Trump’s reaction after he was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July: People show up in extraordinary circumstances.” This is where a person reveals himself. And he showed himself, in my opinion, in a very correct and courageous way. Like a man.
Putin also claimed that Trump was “harassed from all sides” during the campaign and congratulated him on his victory. “What he said about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to end the Ukrainian crisis, deserves, in my opinion, at least attention,” the Russian president said.
Putin said he was “willing” to speak with Trump, criticizing other world leaders who “called him every week” but have now stopped doing so. Trump, for his part, said in an NBC interview Thursday that Putin was not among the dozens of world leaders he had already spoken with, but that he expected a call soon. “I think we’ll talk,” Trump said.
Mark Leonard, director of think tank ECFR warns that “it is dangerous not to take Trump seriously and not to prepare for a new world. “Europe must learn to defend itself with less American power. » Célia Belin, director of ECFR Paris, affirms for her part: “Trump’s re-election will have historic consequences, in political and geopolitical terms. The Trump-led United States will pose unprecedented challenges to Europe on a wide range of global issues: Ukraine, NATO, China, global trade and climate. Within his own party, he will have to deal with different foreign policy doctrines. The “primacists” (who want the United States to maintain a hegemonic foreign policy); the “moderates” (who want the United States to focus on internal issues); and the growing “priorities” camp (who want the United States to focus on China). The latter two camps are the most influential in Trump’s orbit, and their view is that the United States should deprioritize Europe and disengage from alliances.
The weight of the Middle East
The Biden administration never broke with Benjamin Netanyahu, nor even pushed for an arms embargo to end the massacres in Gaza. The head of European diplomacy himself, Josep Borrell, has repeatedly stated that if the United States does not want massacres in Gaza, it must stop supplying weapons to Israel.
Peter Beinart, a professor at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York, wrote in the New York Times on Thursday: “For decades, Democratic Party leaders have treated the Palestinian freedom struggle as a taboo. . Harris thought it made more sense to campaign with Liz Cheney than, say, a congresswoman. [musulmana de Michigan] Rashida Tlaib. “Despite overwhelming evidence, his campaign has failed to understand that among progressive voters, the Palestinian exception no longer applies. »
“There is only one way forward,” writes Beinart: “Even though it will require violent infighting, Democrats, who claim to respect human equality and international law, must begin to align their policies with Israel and Palestine on these broader principles. In this new era, where support for Palestinian freedom has become a central part of what it means to be progressive, Palestinian exceptionalism is not only immoral. It is politically disastrous. For a long time, Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere have paid for this exception with their lives. Today, it is also the Americans who are paying the price. It can cost us our freedom.
The price of freedom
In any case, Donald Trump will go much further in his support for Israel, with what this means in promoting the new configuration of the Middle East map that Netanyahu is promoting. This is what he says in his program: “We will support Israel and seek peace in the Middle East.” Benjamin Netanyahu greeted Trump’s victory thus: “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for the United States and a return to engagement in the great alliance between Israel and the United States. “It’s a big victory!”
It is also a world in which a contagious way of doing politics is rewarded, with ramifications in Latin America and Europe, which is based on lies, manipulations and half-truths, on the drunkenness of public debate , on the dehumanization of the adversary. and in its persecution: we saw it in the Brazil of Jair Bolsonaro, in the Hungary of Viktor Orbán, in the Argentina of Javier Milei, in the Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu or in the United Kingdom of Boris Johnson.
And this conception of the world and of politics has its main defender at the helm of the West, which will play to get along with Russia and to confront China, to undermine multilateral organizations like the UN – it has already left the WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic. –, to fuel military escalation.
