The message:
The strata of lower middle class is being slowly but surely erased from the rapidly changing economic model, to the point that they are being pushed down one technological innovation at a time to soon become occupants of the upper crust of the poverty band. This situation is applicable not just to America but to the world over. Technology has made automation an eventuality, and what were once thought to be the worst affected sectors that involve repititive tasks, like manufacturing, now got extended to every possible field, thanks to the enthusiastic embracing of artificial intelligence. This serious shake up of the economic levels in the capitalistic structure, threatening the displacement, or at times, the disappearance, of the middle class, bubbled up the one primal emotion that elections thrive on - FEAR.
Loss of jobs, loss of financial security, loss of the once idyllic life involving the bread winner bringing a guaranteed weekly pay check home, caused the fear to turn into the second most sought after emotion in elections - ANGER. Fear and Anger are driving every single election all across the globe, drowning out the messages of hope, optimism and change. When the (economic) blows start hitting where it seriously hurts - the stomach - calls for unity, equanimity and progress are thrown out of the window, and the instint of self preservation kicks in. This is what is at the heart of the MAGA movement.
But this erosion of the middle class didn't happen overnight, in the current administration or the past couple of terms and it doesn't even matter who was at the helm - the red or the blue, while this slow shift began. Unfettered capitalism, in the name of the globalization, sought greener pastures for its greenbacks, moving away the middle class jobs to places where they could do performed (and better) for a pittance, surely exploding the corporate profits to exponential degrees, but in the process snatched out the safety nets from under the millions of poorly educated, hard working people. This hearty embrace of the globalization model, particularly by the US corporate sector, has the stock market skyrocketing to stratospheric levels, shooting up the indices to levels unheard before, clearly demonstrating the success of it at least at the investment level, but it was all at the cost of labor capital, human welfare and social security.
Sure, the corporate honcho reaping his profits, raking his millions, moves about in his corporate jets, while the workers whose jobs either been moved out of the country, or rendered obsolete at the altar of automation, line up for the unemployment benefits in grim graveyard neighborhoods. Add to this powder keg, with fear and anger mixed in the right portion and frustration serving as the short fuse, the other byproduct of globalization - immigration (legal and otherwise) - the politicians and the people have now found a perfect target to vent their decades long ire at - these people from outside and all over coming in to steal the (already non-existent) jobs, altering the social fabric and the cultural dynamic of the communities.
Unless the avaricious drive of the Capitalistic engine to remain in a perpetual profit making mode changes, every administration is going to face the wrath of its seething electorate, and every election cycle is going to witness and upheaval of the ideals and fundamentals of a free and functioning democracy.
The messenger:
Don't shoot the messenger, goes the adage. But what if the messenger ratchets up the already enraged, riles up the already frayed and roils up the ones already on the edge? What Trump has shown, both as a candidate and his years at the helm, is his propensity and impulse to worsen a crisis than try defusing or solving it. In the past decade or so in his time in the public spotlight, he has clearly demonstrated that he thrives in the conflicts, arguments and endless debates on public forums and micro platforms than rolling up his sleeves and getting to solve them in the conference rooms. The man has little patience for policy, little temperament for governing, and even much littler understanding of the ways of the world. But then again, he is not your average politician, claim his supporters, as though this is some sort of virtue. The opposite of a seasoned politician cannot be a trigger-happy mouth-off who shoots from his hip/lip. It is tough to talk about Trump without talking about his psychology and his mindset.
Trump is a weathervane for the winds of outrage, aligning his position, turning his direction and training his guns to whichever ways (and words) get the most (outrageous) reaction. In his own words, his once famous catchphrase "Build the wall" was an impromptu throwaway remark in his speech that earned a very visceral reaction from the crowd immediately, making him tuck it away as one of his greatest hits to play it, repeat it, and spice it up further with in each iteration with even more incendiary "and Mexico will pay for it" to the raucous galleries. To make a molotov cocktail of the complex immigration issue and use it to burn down institutions with little regard to consequence or concern for the affected, talks more about his showmanship than do-man-ship. That the whole (illegal) immigration issue (from the southern border) is a messy tangle of aspirations and dreams for a better life, a runaway drug culture (in the US) that created the marketplace for all sorts of trafficking - humans, drugs and weapons, decades long fiendish foreign policy of US that tried to destabilize the Latin American world and always keep it on the boil by rigging elections, supporting dictators and overthrowing governments for the sole purpose of creating and protecting the economic interests of American businesses, an entire swathe of people trying to escape the dangerous landscape created by warring drug cartels and weakend civil governements, and other geo political economic alchemy, all reduced in Trump's flamethrowers to "Mexico is sending its drugs, its rapists...." or "why America needs immigrants from shithole countries like Haiti and Africa?". (T)his curious mix of ignorance and arrogance played right into his crowds' valid fears and raging insecurity about outsiders coming in to steal their already dwindling jobs, creating a feedback of rhetoric and hate, worsening an already impossible political situation where any proposal or solution is immediately shot down, deemed either too little or too late. The one meaningful immigration reform in more than a couple of decades worked upon by a Republican senator in the past few months with bipartisan support, a record of sorts in the current politically charged climate, was declared dead on arrival, when Trump thought that the proposed solution would impact his political points to rail against the immigration and therefore pressured his acolytes who in turn held his party to ransom to nix the proposal and drop the deal.
The system has enough built-in guard rails to withstand all cataclysmic, catastrophic, outlandish whims and tendencies of a President, goes the conventional wisdom. And Trump has put this strongly held notion to the utmost stress test, when practically each and every Cabinet Secretary that he himself appointed, top star Military Generals, his Attorney General, and even his own Chief of Staff came out publicly, albeit much later, and vilified his instincts and propensity to pit people against each other with his wild positions, keep everyone on tenterhooks and constantly revel in that chaos. It has gotten so worse that some among his administration even considered it their patriotic duty to toughen it out by the grit of their teeth, endure the insults and tantrums so as to keep the administration from going off the rails completely (a direct quote of the Chief of Staff, who was eventually fired). While to some extent, the guard rails and checks and balances rein in the sitting President from lighting a fuse to the domestic situation, where Trump really went overboard before, or can make as much damage as possible if elected now, is with his foreign policy. There is a very telling photograph released during his initial days of administration at an international conference with the European leaders, where Trump sits in a chair sulking like a disciplined school kid with his arms tightly crossed across his chest (psychologists could have a field day reading into his body language from that picture), while the rest of the world leaders hover around him, with Angela Merkel in particular, trying to lecture or talk some sense into him. The fact that he knows so little or cares to know about anything, amply evidenced in his speeches that are filled with either platitudes or insults or personal grievances, is the reason why he assumes an adverserial or offensive position against anything and everything under the sun (except against people and policies that shower praises on himself), to hide his insecurity and inferiority. On the flip side, this is the same reason why he likes to be praised, equating those to validations to his positions and his personality. Never was it more comical (and tragic) than a piece of paper he carried in his suit pocket with the top of the envelope protruding above the pocket, proudly proclaiming to whoever asked that it was a "nice" letter from the North Korean leader, just a little time after both countries eased up on mutual preemptive nuclear strikes rhetoric.
Early in the days of his administration, usually when enemies of the state try to saber rattle the latest occupant of the Oval office, Trump fell blindly into the open trap set by North Korea by trying to retaliate with nuclear weapons, Kim's test of his ICBM weaponry. Same went with Iran, as he pulled out unilaterally on an uninformed impulse out of multi-party treaty that has been negotiated arduously by a coalition of nations, which would have halted, at best, or restricted, at least, Iran centrifuge development, the precursor to developing a nuclear weapon. The situation mirrors that of North Korea, in the days of President Clinton, which entered into a similar deal with US-UK-Canada trading the suspension of its nuclear program for the lifting of the sanctions and release of some monetary aid, only to see the treaty thrown into the bin once the Neo-Con administration under George W Bush took over. And here it is, a couple of decades later, North Korea grew from being a mere menace in its neighborhood to a full blown nuclear power, trying to upset not just the regional balance but the global order, hobnobbing with other adversaries of US willing to share their nuclear knowledge for a bit of aid (and for some strange reason, fleet of Mercedes Benz-es). International diplomacy is a dance, a waltz is more like it. It needs tact, patience and the right moves, not to mention, years (and decades) of practice. And sadly, Trump, lacking every single one of these traits, made the teetering ones go fully rogue. What was North Korea earlier, is Iran now. The current conflict playing out in the Middle East can be traced back to kicking Iran to the curb, which in turn sicced its proxy war apparatus - Hamas, Hizbullah and the Houthis - on the one country that it believes can hurt US political and oil interests - Israel.
In a gallows humor kind of way, COVID did the humanity a world of good, by limiting what Trump could had done - domestically and globally - in his last 2 years in office, had he not been pre-occupied with the pandemic. Every administration deals with at least one true crisis in its term - be it Cuban Missile Crisis, Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War, Cold War, 9/11, global financial meltdown, COVID etc - that tests the mettle of the administration on the basis of which history judges the merits of character of a leader emerging from the shadows of a politician, who steers the country to safety and stability away from its imbroglios. As a curtain raiser, America has been a party once to someone sitting in the highest office of the country, who could be manipulated easily and thoroughly for ulterior ends, during the 9/11 Crisis. And quite honestly, the country and the world are still feeling the reverberations and repercussions of that global war on terror till date. An encore happened a couple of terms later with Trump, (with the chief weapon of manipulation being simple flattery) and the world got to witness the mercurial and unpredictable reigns of royalty of the middle ages all over again, this time heading a republic, who almost ended up driving democracy into a ditch.
The challenger:
The choice in this election is quite clear. It is not a Republican vs Democrat or conservative vs liberal. It is Trump vs Not Trump, and the world waits with bated breath.
