I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things have gotten pretty weird in the good ol’ US of A. Even in comparison to Donald Trump’s decidedly weird (to say the least) first term, his second go as “Potus” has been even more unhinged. And eventful.
Believe it or not, Trump has not, in fact, been in office for a decade. Apparently, and I had to check this, he hasn’t even been in office for a full year yet. But just look at what has happened on his watch in less than 12 months.
Tariffs, the Epstein files, military deployments in US cities, calling a female reporter “Piggy”, siding with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, revoking tariffs, siding with Benjamin Netanyahu, turning on Netanyahu, siding with Netanyahu again, furthering the Abraham Accords, going to war with late night comedians, revoking tariffs, denying the Epstein tapes, standing up against antisemitism, sort of turning against Putin, standing with antisemites, cancelling tariffs, calling for the release of the Epstein files, throwing his full support behind Putin again, re-instating tariffs, lying repeatedly about the economy, calling Saudi Arabia’s murder and dismemberment of a journalist something “that happens”, boasting about having the greatest MRI results ever, using the justice department to go after political enemies, blaming Democrats for the Epstein files. Never mind the past year, much of this was just in the past month! Say what you want about him, but you certainly can’t call “The Donald” dull.
Read Full Article on Business Day
[paywall]
But what’s perhaps more interesting is the way culture and politics have warped around him. For now, most of these effects have stayed with America, but as the saying goes — and the reason I’m writing about this for a South African publication — “when America sneezes, the world catches a cold”. Simply put, across one-and-a-quarter terms Trump has completely upended the US political system that has been in place since the Second World 2.
First, and this has been the case since he won the nomination on his first go around, he reformed most of the Republican Party into Maga loyalists, leaving those few who didn’t play ball out in the cold. He’s less the leader of the Republican Party than its Dear Leader. Second, he has caused a major fissure within the Democratic Party as the centre-left establishment finds itself challenged by the far-left populists that have always existed on the fringes but have now been energised by Trump’s own extremist rhetoric.
This was true in his first terms, and even more true now. Not to be outdone, even the Maga Republicans are now at war with one another over the Epstein files and, of all things, antisemitism and/or anti-Zionism. The latter of which, of course, also lies at the heart of the split between classic, centre-left democrats and the new wave of hard-left populists.
Yes, there’s more to it than that, of course, as the sort of moderate social democracy that has traditionally been at the heart of the Democratic platform — one that tries to balance the ill effects of capitalism with numerous social programmes — is currently caught in a fierce battle against the far more revolutionary ethos of democratic socialism. It’s a battle that was all but inevitable, as social democracy has failed to rein in the worst excesses of capitalism in the US and establishment Democrats simply haven’t inspired much confidence since Barack Obama left office. But it says something that this split almost exactly mirrors the split in the American left’s attitudes towards Zionism and Zionist (read: most) Jews.
[/paywall]
