Opinion Sur
The 2024 U.S. elections were not the beginning of the end of the social and political crisis afflicting the country (inequality, dissatisfaction, and resentment = polarization) but the end of the beginning of a possible worse chaos. We are entering a new era. There are several possible scenarios, but none is promising.
The 2024 U.S. elections have put into effect Max Weber’s thesis about the democratic slide in modern societies – from a republican representative democracy to a plebiscitary democracy with authoritarian leaders. According to Weber, it is a type of charismatic domination, where the leader exercises control through the devotion and personal trust of his followers, rather than through institutional structures. It depends on direct popular support. It is not a form of government in itself, but a transformation of political parties (and even their disappearance) driven by extended suffrage. Weber could have glimpsed the rise of this change, but he did not live to see it. Therefore, he could not investigate its dynamics, its advantages, and its dangers. It is up to us to do so. I’ll start with the image of two caps and a Latin digression.
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Non ducor, duco is a Latin expression meaning “I am not led, I drive.” It might seem that it comes, like so many other expressions, from Roman antiquity. However, its origin is more modest and recent. This is the motto of the city of São Paulo adopted in 1917 and created by two Brazilian poets to symbolize the ability of that metropolis to guide and not simply be led by others. It was thus engraved on his shield.
In Argentina it may well have been the motto of Juan Domingo Peron (nicknamed “great conductor”), whose book Political leadership (1952) is the manual of his own interpretation of Machiavelli at the War College. We also know that the title of Il Duce to designate Mussolini comes from the same Latin verb. The relationship is not accidental. Peron was trained militarily and politically in Italy, and Vittorio Mussolini, son of the Duce, called Argentina The Reserve Homeland.[1]
Times change, but the symbology not so much. In every era, weapons have been insignia of power. In the São Paulo coat of arms, the warrior arm wields a classic (medium weapon) that dates back to the conquest of America and was Hernan Cortés’ favorite. From the halberd of the conquistadors to Milei’s chainsaw, the technology and the context change, but not the basic question of any political and geopolitical analysis, namely: Who is in charge?
In a previous article, I argued that today’s political and therefore geopolitical world has entered what I called the “Machiavelli moment”. The great Florentine was the founder of a realist policy that is important today.
Machiavelli’s originality and his relevance today can be summed up in a few questions that are guides to analysis. I repeat: Who’s in charge? And then: How does he exercise the mandate? Who is afraid of what?
In the Italian Renaissance, the first question usually had two answers: either Republic or Principality. Sometimes, an episode of anarchy or confusion occurred between the two models, which could lead to a coup d’état.
The U.S. presidential elections in 2024 have put the country at that same crossroads, not a bivium but a trivium: republic, autocracy, and anarchy. Which of these will come into effect, or rather, what will be the combinatorics or sequence between them? In a republic, power is shared and is exercised in a balanced way but without falling into paralysis. This is true for both an oligarchic republic and a democratic republic. In an autocracy, power is exercised centrally and without counterweight, which gives it initial effectiveness but then also fragility because strategic errors are not corrected but enhanced. To return to the motto of this article, republic and autocracy are two ways of exercising the duke. Anarchy, on the other hand, is the reign of the ducor, that is, of lack of control. And democracy, that is, the power of the people? In the first case, the latter participates and elects through legitimate representatives. In the second case, their options are worship, submission, or subversion. This is where today’s populism is located with all its nuances. In the case of anarchy, there is excess participation but no direction. In extremis we reach civil war.
¿Quo vadis America?
Let’s take it one step at a time to consider possible scenarios.
(1)
The first observation that must be made is that, even before the elections, we knew that whoever triumphed in the electoral contest would win. The crisis of democracy was going to be accentuated. In the event of a Harris victory, American democracy would have continued its course of interregnum with economic growth by sectors, a certain redistribution of income, but also with continued popular resentment and continuity of the Trumpist or post-Trumpist movement, with a possible insurrection. The satisfaction of the elites with the “macro” is contrasted with the anger of a silent majority with the “micro.” In the elections it was this anger that prevailed. There are already some sober studies on this phenomenon. The best ones are those that focus on a class analysis.[2]
Anger is a phenomenon typical of a social class (or important strata) in downward mobility. It generates a reactionary populism, typical, as Gino Germani argued, of secondary social mobilizations. Herein lies the difference between Trump’s populism and Peron’s. The latter led an optimistic primary mobilization – that is, hopeful among those who until then had not participated in the system and now saw themselves included (the new workers). Trump’s populism, on the other hand, is a secondary mobilization of those who were already in the system and are now displaced or left behind. It is a pessimistic and angry mobilization. In the case of the United States, this popular reaction or reactionarism is also distinguished from classical European fascism, in which anger or indignation spread in the lower middle class (for Marxists, the petty bourgeoisie). In the case of the United States, it spreads among sectors of the working class (both white and black and Hispanic), who feel and act as the petty bourgeois class once did.
With Trump’s triumph there will be a direct offensive against various institutions of the republic (the press, the judiciary, individual and group guarantees of dissent and protest, universities, non-governmental organizations, etc.), as has happened in other countries (India, Hungary, Poland) where a second authoritarian administration became harsher and more repressive than the first. The announced mass deportation of undocumented immigrants will meet with resistance, but its ideological cut (like the Vichy government in France, or Mussolini’s racial laws in Italy) will become evident. It would involve, among other things, the establishment of concentration camps for the first time in American history since the internment of Japanese individuals and families during World War II. Worse still, these centers of internment could have a later political use, as happened in Europe and South America in the 1930s.
A pertinent question is whether Trumpism (to avoid the word fascism for the moment because it has become an epithet rather than an analytical concept) will continue to rise or not after Trump, whose advanced age and foreseeable health problems almost guarantee that he will have to leave direct power in the short- or medium-term future. As there are certain similarities with Argentina’s historical populism (with the important caveats indicated above), let us remember that Peron, when he came to power, was 50 years old. Trump, on the other hand, was 70 at the beginning of his first presidency and is 78 now. If he serves his entire term, he will be 82 when he must leave the White House according to the Constitution. Beyond this fact, let us remember that Peronism survived the fall of Peron, his 18 years of exile, his return to power, and beyond his death at the age of 80, until today. Will Trumpism survive Trump himself, despite his celebrated “comeback” (which he shares with other leaders such as Benjamin Netanyahu)? We must set our sights on Vice President Vance and the Republican Party after Trump. Here Max Weber’s warning about the very difficult transfer of individual charisma can be fulfilled.
We have given a provisional answer to each of Machiavelli’s first two questions: Who is in charge? and How does he exercise command? Let us now face the third: Who is afraid of what?
A culture of fear will initially spread in civil society. The struggle that has been waged from the right and for many years to reestablish the old American racial and political hierarchy will intensify in the face of advances in the struggles for civil rights and racial, gender, and sexual orientation claims. Fear and paranoia are characteristic feelings of life under tyranny, and under state terror, or its threat.[3] Provisionally we can anticipate that the fear of inflation of those who today blame Biden will continue but will not see an improvement under Trump. His tariff and protectionist policy will be inflationary. And so will be the closure of immigration. He will try, but without success, to find other scapegoats. We will see.
(2)
The second finding therefore refers to the economic policy and its consequences. In this order there were both common points and important differences between the two candidates and the political forces they represented.
The points in common between Harris’s Democrats and Trump’s Republicans were twofold: maintaining high tariffs on imports of products considered strategic – especially Chinese – and re-industrialization with import substitution. In both cases, it is a question of a retreat from the free-trade globalization at all costs typical of previous neoliberalism and its replacement by a certain autarky with mercantilist policies[4]. But that’s where the coincidences end.
According to my alma mater (NYU) economist Nouriel Roubini, the differences are significant in a number of important areas: fiscal, commercial, climate or environmental, immigration, and monetary, in addition to the relationship with China. For him and many other economists, Trump’s agenda will cause inflation, reduce economic growth (because of high tariffs, currency depreciation, and restriction of immigration), and cause an explosive increase in the budget deficit. For the time being, the markets (especially the financial market) have not realized the seriousness of such consequences. Wall Street expects higher profits and tax cuts under Trump, so its managers are turning a deaf or distracted ear. The big monopoly businessmen remain silent, with one notable exception: Elon Musk, ardent support of the great pimp and casino gambler. His big bet in favor of Trump will bring him big dividends and even a position in the government – in charge of a Milei brand “chainsaw”. The owners of highly prestigious (i.e., elite) newspapers, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times[5], (they have interests associated with contracts with the state) have decided not to vote for any candidate (as they used to do in previous elections), to avoid Trump’s wrath when he becomes president. This strategy has been termed “preemptive submission.”[6] In the past, it had happened with the preemptive submission of the German tycoons Thiessen and Krupp to Hitler. Trump sounds the trumpet of libertarians as he reduces the freedom of those whom he considers rivals or opponents, whom he treats as enemies. It proposes to use the economic weapon (and perhaps other judicial or extra-judicial repressive measures) to persecute them.[7] Libertarians want to disarm the state, except for the repressive apparatus. Freedom advances, sometimes with armored cars.
(3)
The third finding concerns the direct and indirect consequences on the geopolitical field. There were some coincidences and several dissidences. Both parties maintained their continued position in the Middle East with unconditional military support for the state of Israel, despite opposing views regarding the collective punishment that state inflicts on Palestinians. There was a distinction in aggressive rhetoric vis-à-vis Iran, but avoiding a larger escalation. In both cases, it is a distinction between greater or lesser hypocrisy. In any case, there is no reasonable long-term strategy. Therefore, there will be conflict and war sine die in that region. The Trump-Netanyahu coupling will strengthen the “strategy” of extreme Zionism to extend Jewish domination to all of Judea, that is, “Greater Israel”, in my opinion (and that of Israeli high commands) disastrous in the medium and long term. The danger of open war with Iran and nuclear proliferation in the region is increasing.
With respect to Ukraine, the difference will lie in the nuance with which the US will support the freezing of hostilities without lasting peace, and in the mutual concessions between Ukraine and Russia that they will have to tolerate. Be that as it may, the “end” of this war will not go beyond the model of the frozen war that exists today in Asia between the two Koreas. A smarter strategy than the one pursued by Biden, Blinken, and company would have already imposed a slightly fairer end to the Russian invasion, with Mannerheim’s Finland as a model (1939-41). Curiously, on this issue, Trump has been more “realistic” than the Biden and Blinken clique. Trump’s opponents who predict a “handover” of Ukraine to Russia are wrong. Trump is well aware that it would be the equivalent of Biden’s handover of Afghanistan to the Taliban. But maybe he does not care. If the war continues until Trump takes office on Jan. 20, Ukraine will be on the brink of surrender to the Russian steamroller.
Overall, in any of these scenarios, the US will continue to be distracted from its main rivalry with China. From an ideological point of view, Trump’s authoritarianism will put an end to the country’s democratic “soft power” in the world and stimulate the rise of the far right on more than one continent, with Europe and NATO being the main victims. The Paris-Berlin axis, which was the heart of the European Union, is already cracked and I fear the emergence in Europe of an “every man for himself” on the right.
(4)
Chaos or driving?
Internally: If, as I maintain, the great crisis of American democracy has only begun, the days, months, and years that will follow these elections must be characterized by several crises of great magnitude: constitutional crisis –change in the relationship between the three powers, curtailment of certain guarantees, restrictions on electoral participation and civil rights (end of republican representative democracy); civic crisis, with a greater unhealthy atmosphere characterized by fear, paranoia, and apathy (passage from a participating citizenry to a mass of spectators like soccer fans with hooligans and all); and a crisis of international dominance, a field in which U.S. power will lead (duco) less than before and instead will be reduced in several domains (ducor).
On the positive side, however, Trump’s overwhelming electoral triumph removes the specter of a civil war, which would have been loomed with a very narrow electoral result, as predicted by many polls and opinion experts. But it does not remove the danger of tyranny.
Externally: Notorious examples of the coming ducor are the loss of initiative (despite the bravado) against other powers (Russia, China) and the lack of strategy in the face of rogue actors suchas Israel, North Korea, Hungary, and several others that will join a plethora of states that, despite their low demographic or economic weight, will define the geopolitical agenda of the established powers. In Churchill’s words: they are countries that produce more history than they are capable of consuming. Or in Criollo words: they are the tail that wags the dog and not the other way around, as it should be. We will see if Trump reverses that unhealthy relationship.
These are the challenges of plebiscitary democracy with authoritarian leadership. For us analysts, it is a moment of learning and humility. Let us remember that when the Cold War ended, the expert Francis Fukuyama launched a thesis that became famous: the end of history with the definitive triumph of the liberal West. For him then, the only problem to solve in that passable future was boredom. Today, on the other hand, history is not over and we are not going to get bored. On the contrary, and in the Buenos Aires lunfardo: “Hold on Catalina because we are going to gallop.”[8]
[1] Ver Federica Bertagna, La patria di riserva. L’emigrazione fascista in Argentina, Roma: Donzelli, 2006.
[2] For a lucid analysis, read David Brooks’ article in The New York Times of November 6, 2024, “Voters to Elites: Do you see me now?”
[3] Latin Americans are well aware of these moods. See Juan E. Corradi, Patricia Fagen, and Manuel Antonio Garreton, eds., Fear at the Edge: State Terror and Resistance in Latin America, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
[4] This policy does not favor Argentina except if it obtains a bilateral exception with Trump’s United States, as a reward for its ideological and military alignment under Milei.
[5] See David Remnick’s article “Standing up to Trump,” in The New Yorker, November 11, 2024, pp. 17-18.
[6] See Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017. The subject is as old as Étienne de la Boetie’s pamphlet, On Voluntary Servitude (1574). Most recently see Ivan Ermakoff, Ruling Oneself Out. A Theory of Collective Abdication, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
[7] For a detailed analysis see Martin Wolff’s article, “Trump is the man who would be King,” Financial Times, October 30, 2024.
[8] The expression has its origin in the audience’s shouts “Hold on Catalina” towards a young circus trapeze artist in the 40s in Buenos Aires. He was also referring and by extension to the story of Empress Catherine of Russia who was “round-heeled” in her sexual relations.
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