by Alan Friedman | The United States is facing six different crises, all at once. Whether the current occupant of the White House wants to admit it or not, there is a health crisis, with an ongoing pandemic. Donald Trump insists that 'too many tests are being done' and promptly explains: 'If fewer swabs were done, the number of cases would be lower'. That is: a slightly more reassuring case index on paper would translate into improved polling against Joe Biden. Or so he thinks. And he doesn't even try to hide it anymore.
The health crisis
Covid-19 is still spreading in several Republican-ruled states, such as Florida or South Carolina or Arizona or Oklahoma, where far-right governors reopened too early. Can you imagine what would have happened if Italy had allowed bars and restaurants to resume operations at the end of April? That's more or less what these states did, to Trump's applause. The price they now have to pay is terrible. Yet they won't close again. Trump debunks and denies the Coronavirus threat, denies the science, raising the flag of machismo to glorify his followers, and many Republicans have readily joined in. Dr Anthony Fauci, the voice of reason, America's most respected medical expert, has been reduced to absolute silence, or nearly so. Trump has relegated him to the background, keeping him away from the White House. Dr Fauci speaks only the truth, warns of the dangers of a second wave in the autumn, declares that premature reopenings will send the number of cases soaring. But none of these truths please The Donald. And so Fauci is no longer seen. Or hardly at all.
The social crisis
In Trump's America, the crisis is not just about healthcare. There is much more. What we are experiencing is also a gigantic social crisis, a national upheaval, a series of unprecedented protests, very different from those of the 1960s. A period of unrest, unrest, racism and rampant violence in the streets. Unfortunately, in many states the police, the guardians of the law, are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. The racial component of the issue has been compounded by the inflammatory rhetoric of a president who too often, when he takes the floor, is reminiscent of any white supremacist. Trump has not shown the slightest empathy for George Floyd or the Black Lives Matter movement. In fact, he has made the supremacists' point of view his own. The police point of view. While patching up a botched response to the Covid emergency, he relied on Twitter to pursue his distract-and-divide tactics and to appeal to the racist, nationalist and anti-immigrant impulses of certain parts of his electoral base. The reasoning is clear: since he will never win in liberal New York, he might as well start courting Ku Klux Klan votes again. Never has an American president so divided his nation. Never, in the entire history of the United States. And never, before Donald Trump, has a president behaved so much like a caudillo. In an era of violent protests, chaos and social crisis, Donald Trump's solution was to deploy the army against his own people. Military and para-military personnel in riot gear, armed with machine guns, swarm the streets of Washington. In order to be filmed with a Bible in his hand in front of a church, he unleashed a violent attack on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square. A dark moment in his descent into authoritarianism. Right now, he is virtually the first cause of the ongoing social crisis: because it is he who feeds it, day after day, relentlessly. It is all part of his electoral strategy. Divide, sow discord. Steve Bannon's old recipe.
The civil rights crisis
In addition to the health crisis and the social crisis, America is now suffering from a civil rights crisis: the government is trying to wipe out years of struggle by minorities, women, gays and immigrants. Its call to make abortion illegal has been accepted in more than 15 states. In his race towards an illiberal democracy Trump has not hesitated to use courts, judges, lawsuits and decrees, which have undermined and emptied the civil rights of women, the LGBT community and ethnic minorities. It has reinforced the old racist policy of voter suppression: in many Republican states, and in some of the key ones where Trump absolutely needs to win, local authorities do not deploy sufficient staff to allow people to vote smoothly on Election Day. The organisational machinery is constantly jammed, Latino and black voters are forced to come to terms with increasingly stringent and complicated eligibility criteria in order to discourage them and reduce their turnout (which would presumably result in a disadvantage for the Democrats). At the same time Trump is trying to bankrupt the U.S. Post Office and continues to attack the right to vote by mail in the belief that it favours the Democrats. In order to deter the hostile electorate he is prepared to resort to extreme measures that threaten our democratic practices and even the right to vote itself.
The crisis of the judicial system
The civil rights crisis is only one part of a broader crisis of the judicial system. It is a serious problem for our democracy, which should be founded on a system of checks and balances that guarantees a balance between the three powers: judicial, executive and legislative. But Trump was mentored by Roy Cohn, a former advisor to the New York Mafia families and a leading player in the witch-hunt era launched by Joseph McCarthy against alleged communists in Hollywood. So when someone investigates Trump, he fires him. That's the trend. He did this with Jim Comey, head of the FBI, and has now passed the baton to William Barr. Trump uses the Justice Secretary as if he were his personal lawyer. The crisis in the judiciary came to a head on 19 June, when Barr fired New York Attorney General Geoffrey Berman - and only because, in all evidence, Trump ordered him to get rid of him. Berman was investigating the president and his bankers, family trusts, tax and insurance deals. Berman was also investigating Trump's friend and personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The law prohibits the president and the justice minister from firing for political reasons prosecutors who dare to investigate family members or people close to the president. Yet that is exactly what is happening.
The economic crisis
But of course there is also an economic crisis going on, and according to many this may be the most important crisis of all. We are entering a period of uneven and uneven recovery from a deep recession: in other words, we have to overcome the dregs of the Covid-imposed lockdown. Even if we recover economically within a year or two, there are still tens of millions of Americans out of work, and millions of small businesses at risk. Any economic measures that are introduced between now and November will have a very strong political and electoral slant. It is clear that Trump is trying to print money to buy votes, whether it is billions and billions of dollars of 'helicopter money' or other government spending initiatives. The US economy, like Europe's, will be ailing in 2020, and it may take almost two years to return to 2019 GDP levels. Yet on Wall Street optimism flies on the wings of enthusiasm, and the Dow Jones sometimes seems too exuberant. High volatility is to be expected from now until immediately after the 3 November elections.
The crisis in foreign policy
There is also a foreign policy crisis, also the result of the actions of our president, who has withdrawn from or attacked almost every multilateral institution of which the US was a member, from the WHO to the Paris climate accords, the World Trade Organisation, NATO and the UN Commission on Human Rights. The US has abdicated its global leadership and Trump has launched venomous attacks on his closest allies in Europe. The Trumpian choice has had radical geopolitical consequences: China has accelerated its race towards becoming the new superpower of the 21st century, and Vladimir Putin has been given the green light to do what he wants, where he wants and when he wants. Is Er- customs going to close accounts with the Kurds? This is not a problem. America withdraws from Syria, and Russia occupies its old bases. Israel can annex more Palestinian territories. Modi in India can open fire on Pakistanis at the border. Bolsonaro can tolerate genocide in the Amazon, and nobody lifts a finger.
The consequences of crises
The consequences are largely negative for Europe and the rest of the world. Economic recovery will be slower if Trump is re-elected. The world will be a darker, darker place. He has legitimised racism on the home front, just as he will legitimise dictatorships in every corner of the globe. And at that point the flashback to the 1920s could become frighteningly realistic. If, on the other hand, Biden wins in November there could be a great deal of collective relief in the world and the stock market might not collapse and there might be a chance that America could be America again. This is also a possible scenario.
Full version of the article
was published in issue 3 of Elettronica AV
About Alan Friedman
A journalist, television host, writer and economics expert, he has been a correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He began his career as an aide to President Carter's administration, created and hosted several RAI programmes, worked on the creation and launch of Rainews24 and in 2003 collaborated with Rupert Murdoch on the creation of SkyTG 24. During his career he worked as a journalist at the Financial Times in London, Alan Friedman has been awarded four times with the British Press Award. One of his most famous scoops was the discovery of the Iraq-gate scandal, the sale of arms to Saddam Hussein thanks to illicit financing carried out also through BNL, which involved the CIA. He is the author of nine best-selling books, including his latest effort "'This is not Italy' published by Newton Compton.
