Used from time to time, for a century, against the current president, a caustic quip by a master of American journalism of the past received new youth in 2016 and has since been linked, for many, to what remains of the peaked forelock of Donald Trump. The author is Henry Louis Mencken from Baltimore, at its peak in the 20s, who offered it to readers of the July 900 Baltimore Sun 26 years ago, as the vacuous Warren G. Harding was about to be elected. “With the perfecting of democracy – Mencken ruled – the role of the president increasingly represents the deepest soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the common people of the country will finally see the dream they hold deep in their hearts come true and the White House it will be embellished by the presence of a total cretin”. Which doesn't mean a harmless jerk. Someone like us, finally; the maximum of populism, as we well know in Italy.
Trump: Face of the Rage of a Divided America
The picture is black after four years of Trump's presidency and two more years in which Trump managed to pass in the eyes of tens of millions of Americans not as just any defeated candidate but as a legitimate defrauded ruler. And as he is “one like us,” millions feel cheated. However, it would be a serious mistake to reduce everything to a fact of presumed collective stupidity. Behind the choice of radical solutions, of someone who finally launches a Washington the gesture of the umbrella, there is the malaise of tens of millions of voters that they feel betrayed. In particular, from the ineffective military adventures after the terrible attacks of 2001, from the scary post-2008 financial crisis, where many felt abandoned by the system that instead protected the banks, from the growing income inequality and from the end of good blue jobs more or less secure collars; and finally by a progressive social agenda that has upset, according to many, the idyllic scenario of family, church and country in recent decades.
Trump and the Dangerous Distortion of Reality: “The Defrauded Sovereign”
Barack Obama had amply promised in 2008 a major cleanup, necessary for the looming financial abyss, with a campaign of clear moderate left-wing populism that was not followed up with deeds, and no prosecutions of financial goofs. And so about a third of the counties that voted for Obama in 2012 and a quarter of those that did in 2008 passed in 2016 to Trump. Today America is like a forest full of fallen logs and dry shrubs and a spark is enough to set everything on fire, says political scientist Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, author of half a dozen surveys in the last year and a half opinion polls aimed at the Trumpian electorate. There are today, recalls Pape, between 15 and 20 million American adults convinced that violence is justified in order to Donald Trump in the White House, which was deceived from him. Many believe it, Trump has made it his banner, that's not true, but it works because he simply explains everything: they cheat us, even in voting.
Trump against Biden and the attack on the Capitol
Everyone knows that Trump won six years ago thanks to about 80 more popular votes than Hillary Clinton taken in three states (Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) which gave him the necessary majority in theelectoral vote; Clinton had nearly 2.9 million more popular votes, on a national basis, but the electoral mechanism rewarded Trump, and no one rode the story of "victory betrayed" and phantom fraud in favor of Trump.
Joe Biden he beat Trump in November 2020 thanks to a gap of 44 votes in Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona, without which the result, in terms of electoral votes, would have been equal, to be resolved in Congress, according to the constitutional rules. Overall, the six states most in the balance, in addition to the three aforementioned Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada, there are about 310 more votes for Biden, who also had almost 7 million more popular votes, but this, as known, has a value only symbolic in the American federal system which moderates the excessive power of the most populous areas through the mechanism ofelectoral college. Trump refused to recognize the verdicts of the state authorities, each responsible for the regularity of the votes, he put enormous pressure on local Republican politicians to invoke fraud impossible to prove, he threatened, he shouted confirming that he had a character with childish traits that reacts hysterically to defeats, claims to In order for Vice President Pence as president of the Senate not to sign the verdicts sent to Washington by the individual states, autonomous authorities also in terms of elections, Pence refused, and it was in that climate that the incredible attack by Trump's stormtroopers on the Capitol.
Investigations, investigations and searches: all the knots in Trump's comb
The knots are coming home to roost, in a battle that should also indicate how many truly believe in the betrayed victory and how many don't, first of all within the Republican party, beyond the propaganda statements of "let's save America from the traitors". In July 2022, a group of Republican jurists and politicians, including two former senators, released a 70-page study (Lost, not stolen, i.e. vote lost, not stolen) where all cases of alleged fraud are examined, already denied by the various States and by about 60 sentences (often by conservative judges) on individual appeals, and also considered by this analysis to be non-existent.
A House parliamentary investigation is looking into Trump's role in the incredible riots on Jan. 6, 21, and hard-hitting testimony and information has emerged. Two federal criminal investigations are evaluating one the same episodes of January 6, the other the overall attempt to distort the electoral results. A review of Trump's November 2020 lobbying of local authorities is underway in Georgia. New York magistrates have two investigations distinct on the commercial practices, and the tax behavior, of theTrump empire. And finally, in the context of a long-standing federal case over the use of confidential documents that Trump should have returned at the end of his term, a year and a half ago, there was the search of his Florida residence, the Mar-a-Lago note, by the FBI, last August 8, with the seizure of various cases of documents. It was the quantum leap in the dispute. “Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of material,” Trump announced shortly thereafter. All denied by the National Archives, custodians of the material. But the important thing is to muddy the waters and play the victim.
Trump is in great trouble but the Republicans are still his party
Was the move to Mar-a-Lago a gamble by Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Biden, yet with the White House keeping as low-key as possible in this legal battle? Someone supports it, because Trump's strength on the party republican he is still impressive, and polls indicate that if the presidential primaries were held now, he would be the likely candidate. Joe Kent, Washington State's Trumpian candidate for a House seat, said "all of this clearly points to what many of us have been saying for a long time: We are at war." AND Kari Brine, who won the Republican primaries with assaults on the jugular and will very likely be the new governor of Arizona next November: "this is a battle between those who want to save America and those who want to destroy it".
And again: “They will stop at nothing to wipe out the patriots who are fighting hard to save the country, who are you with?” Immediately, putting his hands forward, his spokesman added that "accusing Republicans of inciting violence is the usual dishonest game". But incite violence that's exactly what Trump and his cohorts are doing. They say a former president and presidential candidate has never been treated like this and are calling for an inquiry into Garland. It was easy to answer that never a president and a presidential candidate he moved with a disregard of the law equal to that demonstrated by Donald Trump. If the law ultimately fails to win, we look forward to dark days for America, and for us.
A beautiful article, the result of the pen of a journalist who really knows American politics.