Trump’s assumed mandate, agenda

TREVOR SUDAMA

ASSESSING a sense of economic dissatisfaction and social disillusionment among the majority of Americans, Donald Trump amplified and exploited this sentiment with liberal recourse to misinformation, disinformation and flagrant untruths.

He attributed the causes of their grievance and distress to the following:

1. The invasion of the country by tens of millions of illegal immigrants due to the open border policy of the Joe Biden administration. They were not only taking away jobs from American citizens, but were violent murderers and rapists who were responsible for the crime surge. They were polluting the blood of Americans and introducing despicable and sub-human practices in the country.

2. Due to their incompetence, lust for power and lack of patriotism, the ruling classes of America have presided over a failing economy, allowed it to be plundered and pillaged by foreigners, and have ignored the concerns and welfare of the common man.

3. They have colluded with the “deep state” and sections of the media to introduce unacceptable cultural norms and values (the woke culture) which were destroying the social fabric, cohesion and integrity of the society. They have also conspired to prosecute and persecute him in an attempt to prevent his accession to the presidency.

The solutions Trump proffered are simple and direct, with populist appeal and bearing immediate results. They were enthusiastically embraced by a receptive majority. They were:

1. Mass deportation of all immigrants deemed to be illegal, with the exercise commencing on the day of inauguration. A state of emergency was to be declared and the military deployed to assist in this programme. Military leaders who have reservations or suspected of disloyalty will be removed or court-martialled. The signal has already gone out to those generals who supervised the evacuation of American personnel and others from Afghanistan in 2021.

2. The wall along the Mexican border will be completed at whatever cost.

3. The “deep state” and its apparatus of control will be demolished by rationalising, restructuring and downsizing the federal bureaucracy, by dismantling the education, health and social welfare regimes and by appointing proven and committed loyalists (even if novices) to head all departments and agencies of the government with the possibility of recourse of circumventing the provisions of the constitution and the mandate of Congress.

4. The apparatus of the state will be used to pursue opponents, suppress dissidents and marginalise unacceptable minorities in pursuit of Trump’s vision of a powerful and reinvigorated America based on radical conservative and traditional values, on fervent patriotism, on imposed social stability and order, and swift justice for dissent and deviance.

5. A 20 per cent tariff will be imposed on all imports except for imports from China, which will be 60 per cent. This will be to protect the American economy, to encourage investment by American businessmen to produce goods and services in America, and generate jobs locally. It promises to be a robust expression of economic nationalism.

6. Tax breaks will be provided for some income groups but focused particularly on the rich and highest income earners, ostensibly to promote investment.

7. An inward perspective and isolationism in world affairs, a disengagement from multilateral organisations and agreements, and a reduction in foreign aid and investment.

To implement this agenda of making America great again requires a strong and resolute leader supported by the mechanisms and tools of autocracy, unhindered by the institutions of democracy or established norms and traditions.

There is no other suitable candidate than Trump himself for carrying out this agenda and overturning the existing order since he was a victim of the “deep state” and was prosecuted and persecuted with concocted charges and demonised by a sector of the media.

It is said that history repeats itself but not always in the same way. Autocracy (and fascism) is already at the doorsteps of American society with the complicity of the majority of American electors. Germany went through this in the 1930s with the emergence of Adolf Hitler, who is now revered by Trump.

Trump will soon be installed in the White House. With the Republicans in the majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives, he will control Congress. His influence with the upper reaches of the judiciary is secured and soon to be further consolidated. He has succeeded in intimidating large swathes of the media to bend to his will. Big business is already in his corner. His purge of the Department of Justice and the military is being conscientiously planned.

Project 2025 is the accepted template for action by Trump’s regime. His administration will attempt the most comprehensive reconstruction, reorientation and re-engineering of American society. In short, it will portend an elaborate and consequential sociopolitical and cultural revolution.

The possible consequences for America will be as follows:

(a) The emergence of a one-party state and the formality of elections at least in the short to medium term. This could be accomplished if Republicans succeed in the majority of states of effectively suppressing Democratic voters and excluding them from the electoral rolls. Trump did say after alleging that the elections were stolen from him in 2020 that it will never happen again.

(b) The experience of a level of economic disruption, of galloping disparity in incomes and access to opportunity and services, and a growing cohort of the poor and destitute.

(c) The pursuit of a regime of retribution and persecution reminiscent of the era of Mc Carthyism with the targeting of liberals, leftists, socialists and others in civil society, together with those in the media deemed to be engaged in un-American activities. In the current situation it would be speech or action opposed to Trump’s philosophy and dictates.

(d) The organisation of mass demonstrations in support of the regime intended to intimidate opponents.

(e) The emergence of confusion, uncertainty, chaos, disorder, confrontation, and violence in various forms as ongoing phenomena. When Mao Tse-tung (also spelled Zedong) launched his cultural revolution in the 1960s in China to remould and reorient Chinese society, it took more than a generation to recover from the upheaval, chaos and disorder of that misguided experiment.

(f) The witnessing of the retreat of American democracy, power and influence on the world stage and the loss of its pre-eminence.

(g) The strident march of autocracy and dictatorship as the dominant system to fill the vacuum created in the new world order by American isolationism and sociopolitical malaise.