Opinion Sur
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But that corruption leaves the population defenseless against foreign domination.
Critics of the Trump administration — ignoring for the moment the stupor it provokes among people of good will — emphasize the incompetence and rudeness with which the president and his vassals are embarking on the road to dictatorship. For many it is more than the portrait of a severe authoritarian regime: it is its caricature, but with a caveat. This time the caricature is made of flesh and blood. In the 19th century, Germans mocked the Austrian political regime with this phrase: Autoritarismus gemildert durch Schlamperei (authoritarianism moderated by bungling). However, when shoddiness takes over the most powerful country on the planet, the consequences are dire and probably irreversible.
I will not dwell here on the causes that have led to the fall of democracy into dictatorship in the United States, among others: the vagaries of the popular will, the source of all sovereignty since J. J. Rousseau; the antiquated system of indirect elections, the growing accumulation of powers in the hands of the executive branch; the fragmentation of protest and its lack of organization; the inhibition of important institutions that once acted as a brake; the decline of civility in popular culture; social networks that favor volatile scandal over all other types of communication, etc.
The result is in sight in the second year of the Trump administration. With initially democratic procedures, the movement led by the president has achieved control of the three branches of the state: executive, legislative and judicial. Control is not yet complete, as the presidential party’s majorities in legislative chambers have narrow margins, and the judicial system continues its resistance in some lower seats, but not in the Supreme Court. Even so, in this second year we observe a deliberate, persistent and systematic erosion of the institutions that until recently sustained the freedom and autonomy of democracy.
We must remember that the distinction and merit of democracy consist in its capacity for self-correction as a system of power, and that the alternation in power of two or more parties makes it possible to limit arbitrariness in decision-making. Trump and his henchmen, on the other hand, concentrate power and agency, and have both friends and enemies on tenterhooks, whom they arbitrarily change their position.
In a general theoretical sense, we can define terror as the threat and infliction of severe punishments without telling the recipient what s/he should or should not do. In other words, submission (even the most abject) to the ruler is no guarantee of security. In the geopolitical field, we can observe every day how different allied countries and even some rivals try to placate and flatter the head of the United States. With such a concentration of power, the dynamics of government action tend towards exaggeration and extremism.
However, all this “naked” imposition (that is, without moral or legal legitimacy), and the consequent submission of some powers or institutions, hides a contrary reality, in perfect dialectical opposition: the arbitrary exercise of power urbi et orbi in this period weakens the United States in the face of future foreign domination.
In today’s multipolar world, China stands out for its front-line position among America’s peer rivals. I am struck by the serenity, or “strategic patience” of this rival power in the face of President Trump’s “excesses” that lead other countries to shameful contortions of compromise or submission. Reading some famous phrases of Napoleon Bonaparte there is one that has caught my attention, and it says:
“When your enemy is executing a false move, never interrupt him.”
This phrase, attributed to Napoleon, certainly applies to his philosophy in war strategy. Napoleon recognized the need to understand the motivations, habits, and character of the enemy, and like most of the references used in war, the warning is totally and validly assimilable to today’s world in many facets. From a Chinese perspective, the Napoleonic phrase (sometimes also attributed to Sun Tzu) fits like a tailor-made glove.
Trump’s erosion and systematic attack on the pillars of American democracy will leave the population (quite degraded in its cultural and social capital) defenseless in the face of, first, infiltration, and then a foreign takeover. Without any kinetic attack, without firing a single shot, the invasion will be carried out by technological primacy and by peaceful infiltration of institutions and society in general. With American universities decimated, with severe cuts to scientific research, with the subtraction of funds from basic and egalitarian education, with degraded public health, with the closure of immigration, with onerous tariffs and a ridiculous substitution of imports – Trump’s great “achievements” – a supposed foreign “invader” will be fully exempt from the fatigues of an occupation.
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