Opinion Sur
The 2024 U.S. elections are not the beginning of the end of the social crisis afflicting the country (inequality, dissatisfaction, and resentment = polarization) but the end of the beginning of a worse chaos. There are several possible scenarios, but none is promising.
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, 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 its 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. 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 a favorite of Hernan Cortes. 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 politics that is still in force today.
Machiavelli’s originality and his current validity can be summarized in a few questions that are guides for analysis. I repeat: Who’s in charge? And then: How does s/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 duco. 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. In the case of anarchy, there is excess participation but no direction.
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, the crisis of democracy is going to be accentuated. In the event of a Harris victory, American democracy will continue its course of interregnum with economic growth, greater income redistribution, but also with continued popular resentment and continuity of the Trumpist or post-Trumpist movement.
In the case of Trump’s triumph, there will be a direct attack on 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) 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. So, we must turn our gaze to Vice President Vance and the party after Trump.
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 state terror.[2]
(2)
The second finding concerns the economic policy and its consequences. In this order there are both common points and important differences between the two candidates and the political forces they represent.
The points in common between Harris’s Democrats and Trump’s Republicans are two: 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. 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 Roubini, 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 ear or distracted. The big monopoly businessmen remain silent, with one notable exception: Elon Musk, ardent support of the great taita and casino gambler. The owners of large-circulation newspapers, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, (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 if he becomes president. This strategy has been termed “preemptive submission.”[3] Trump sounds the trumpet of libertarians as he reduces the freedom of those he considers rivals or opponents, whom he treats as enemies. He intends to use the economic weapon to chase them.[4] Libertarians want to disarm the state, except for the repressive apparatus.
(3)
The third finding concerns the direct and indirect consequences on the international field of each of the proposals at stake. In this field too, there are some coincidences and several dissidences. Both candidates maintain continuity 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 is also a distinction in aggressive rhetoric vis-à-vis Iran, but avoiding further escalation. In both cases it is a distinction between greater or lesser hypocrisy. In both cases there is no reasonable long-term strategy. Therefore, there will be conflict and war sine die in that region.
With regards 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 that Ukraine and Russia 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 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.
Overall, in either scenario, 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.
(4)
Ducor Boom. 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); civic crisis, with a greater unhealthy environment characterized by fear, paranoia, and apathy; 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). Notorious examples of the coming lead are the loss of initiative and the lack of strategy in the face of “rogue” actors (rogue states) such as 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 elderly. In Churchill’s words: they produce more history than they are capable of consuming. Or in Criollo words: they will be the tail that wags the dog and not the other way around, as it should be.
[1] Ver Federica Bertagna, La patria di riserva. L’emigrazione fascista in Argentina, Roma: Donzelli, 2006.
[2] 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.
[3] 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.
[4] For a detailed analysis see Martin Wolff’s article, “Trump is the man who would be King,” Financial Times, October 30, 2024.
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