Beyond the economic and financial analysis of theTrump's Tariff Initiative and the consequent stock market crash of the whole world, it is worth reflecting on the fact that the decision of a single person, even if democratically elected at the top of what is still the world's leading economy, leading military power and leading geopolitical actor, can to shock the entire world ex abrupto causing certain damage to entire populations in the face of presumed advantages for their fellow citizens which, however, are almost unanimously contested by all the most accredited economists, including those of his own country.
With one stroke, Trump has jeopardized what the leaders of the most advanced countries and the main international organizations have achieved since the second world war, or the trade liberalization in homage to the promises of the theory of comparative costs; promises which, moreover, have been largely kept as demonstrated by the indisputable fact that the standard of living of billions of people in the most recent decades has greatly improved.
Trump and the tariffs: how was it possible?
First of all, a preliminary consideration: the rise to political power through democratic means of people of mediocre quality and of questionable capacity goes far beyond the current president of the United States; it has also happened in other countries among the most advanced, starting with those Europeans, without excluding our beloved Italy. The American case is far more disruptive than any other both for the drastic nature of the decision itself and for the weight that the United States and their economy has an impact on the economic and geopolitical structures of the entire world.
There must be, therefore, a common denominator which has acted and is acting in a good part of our planet with an impact that tends to be stronger the higher the level of development of individual countries (there are exceptions, obviously, but the general trend is substantially this). I believe it is not risky to believe that this common denominator is the spread of telematic means in general and the so-called social media in particular.
The advent of telematics and “mediocre leaders”
In support of this thesis, it is worth recalling first of all one of the most famous axioms of the historian Carlo Cipolla, namely that the number of stupid people is always underestimated. We can safely consider the axiom valid also for the number of ignorant people, meaning those who are poorly educated, easy prey for propaganda and in any case lacking those cultural tools, such as the ability to analyse, critical thinking and comparison, necessary to form their own ideas.
There have always been ignorant people, it will be said. Of course. But before the advent of telematic means, the democratic method could function more efficiently because these "ignorant" people did not have to deal directly with the political class, but each interacted primarily with one or more economic, cultural, religious, trade union, and category association structures in which they primarily recognized themselves. Each of these structures was biased, of course, but still performed a pedagogical function through people who in any case explained, motivated, and organized a more conscious political consensus and with whom, above all, each had the opportunity to interact.
Then telematic means spread and, therefore, internet electronic messaging, the social. Means of communication and information of a power that until then was unthinkable for those who have the culture to exploit their immense possibilities, but also harmful for those who do not have that culture. Deleterious, yes, because they produce the deception of making people believe that through telematics anyone who can speak to directly with the exponents of the political class, while in reality, and precisely as a function of this deception, they end up handing over this type of people – the webeti, Enrico Mentana called them – exclusively to a political party and to individual leaders.
Those who are not cultured, as mentioned, do not delve into, do not compare, do not listen to different proposals or opinions, so that adhering to a political party ends up being more similar to a religion, or at least to cheer, ultimately to a prejudice.
From the capable to the charmers: politics has become marketing
On the other hand, those who aspire to a political role will no longer need to demonstrate their vision ability, of administrative management, of proposing some model of civil organization on which to parameterize the actions aimed at the common interest of one's potential electorate, but it will be enough that he knows more than others to enchant, to delude, to attract by any means the favor of the voters. This is how they were open the doors to populism, so leaders have become followers, so visions and proposals regarding the future have been overwhelmed by the search for immediate effect; so politics has become marketing.
A slightly dated but equally significant example is given by a study by an American university on Bolsonaro's election campaign in Brazil. In that study it was shown that as much as 80 percent of the circumstances and data presented in support of his political positions and the resulting proposals that characterized his electoral campaign were clearly false or artfully distorted, which did not prevent, as is well known, his election.
So on the one hand we find ourselves everywhere with a political class that is mediocre to say the least, starting with a Trump even president of the United States of America, and on the other hand a democratic system which, being founded on the awareness and capacity of independent judgment of the voters, shows increasingly evident limits and dysfunctions.
