There is really only one news story over the last months: the start of Donald Trump's regime.
Before
the end of last year I said on Matthew Tree’s TV discussion program
that one of the main reasons Trump was elected was that he knows that
(now more than ever) politics is an entertainment industry.
Style has
become substance. Impression has replaced reality.
I
also said that Trump would have been defeated by Bernie Sanders, the
other alternative candidate in the Democratic party who offered a
genuine agenda of change rather than Hillary Clinton’s message of a
continuing the same for another four years.
Trump
found the votes he needed in the parts of the country where he needed
them because he stood for a major shake-up to a system that clearly
needs it and because he repeatedly promised work again to the
unemployed.
When I talk to people here in Catalonia, plenty of people
use the word “confident” about Donald Trump. What seems to me as his
grotesque arrogance then, is seen by others as a can-do attitude and has
given a false hope. And it is also this that helped propel him into the
White House.
Large
numbers of the public are prepared to ignore his clear personality
faults because Trump projects the persona of someone who is an action
hero, a cowboy, a maverick but a ‘do-er’ as well as a big talker. And a
significant chunk of the popular media has continued to be sucked into
reporting his ‘colourful antics’ and ‘controversial statements’ rather
than the policy decisions he has already taken in his first weeks in
charge.
Even
as I write this article, I have to struggle to concentrate on the
detail of the executive orders he has just signed rather than talking
about his inflammatory Twitter posts. It is easier to look at what he
has tweeted than what he has, with a stroke of his pen, made into law.
On a daily basis the airwaves and worldwide web are awash with his
decisions but the hour-by-hour short news cycle can never dwell for too
long on a single issue and Trump thrives on this fact as much as he
enjoys letting it drag him into the gutter.
Recently,
several journalists who covered the protests at his inauguration were
charged. With exactly what offence no one's quite sure at this moment
but this intimidation tactic is likely to have its desired effect.
As
well as this, the Spanish language version of the Presidential website
was shut down: a clear signal to the US’ hispanic citizens that they are
disposable too in the wider sweep of life.
These are actions, not words
and they are Donald Trump’s actions. Despite this, his distractions
about voter fraud and the size of the crowd at his first speech as
commander-in-chief have been publicised a great deal more than his
decision-making, as if his social media presence was more significant
than the impact of his policies on ordinary people.
It
is more than apparent now that those who thought Trump would soften his
attitudes and become sobre and responsible once sitting at the Oval
Office desk were wrong.
He is just getting warmed up.
What we will
witness in the next four years (or possibly even eight years) is
guaranteed to be an extreme exercise of naked power as a simple
extension of his ego. It will be unlike any other term of office in that
corrupt superpower ‘democracy.’
The crucial question is how much
congress is going to stand up to Trump’s will. My prediction is that the
majority Republican party will typically bend to his wishes.
I
was woken up at five o’clock in the morning by a dream about Trump and
immediately decided to write this article. In my dream Trump was on a
television talk show and left the set complaining and throwing his
earpiece on the ground.
The truth is that he no longer needs to even
appear on TV. We are all doing his PR for him and I would argue that his
tweets should be completely ignored by all media, in effort to starve
him of easy air time.
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, March 2017.]
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